Honesty
by thearrowsoflegolas
Summary: The Winter Soldier has a new mission. Erin Jefferson is a young SHIELD biochemist who has just synthesised a serum that can make anyone tell the truth, and HYDRA wants it. The Winter Soldier is expecting it to be an easy job, and Erin is expecting to die there. What she's not expecting is to meet a man with light eyes and a dark past who needs her help. SLOWburn Bucky/OC fic
1. Part One: one

**First thing's first (I'm the realest)**

 **Though I am a Chemist and a Biologist, the stuff that Erin is working on is entirely beyond the realms of possibility in real life, so please don't leave messages telling me that ' _that would never work in real life_ ' because, even though it would be super cool if it did, I _know._**

 **That said, I'll try my best to make most of the science in this fic (besides the magic mind-reading drugs, of course) as true and accurate as possible. Hope you enjoy. Also, as a warning, this chapter is full of science jargon, so you might get a tad bored through it. It's just so I can set a base for the story, it won't all be like that I promise haha x**

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Erin squinted her eyes, a wrinkle forming between her brows as she stared down the microscope intently. A single white blood cell squished its way across the glass slide, leaving a gooey imprint in its wake. Erin sighed and leant back, pushing the microscope away from herself, tucking the loose strands of dark blonde hair that had escaped from her messy bun behind one of her ears. She glanced at her watch wearily, her eyes blearing as they tried to focus on something that wasn't being seen through a light microscope at X1500 magnification.

The fuzzy hands came into focus, and she sighed to herself as she noticed that it was well past midnight. It was often that she worked late, but not usually _this_ late. She removed her thick plastic lab goggles and rubbed her tired eyes with her left hand.

"Tired?"

The voice came from her left. She turned and smiled as she saw Bruce Banner, twirling his glasses in one hand, looking at her with a mixture of confusion and interest. There was a pad of paper on his desk in front of him, filled with a mass of writing that Erin couldn't even begin to decipher. Erin rolled her eyes. Yes. She was tired.

"Shattered, yes. Thanks for asking."

Bruce chuckled and stood up from his seat, coming to sit next to her. The lab was empty apart from them, the bright fluorescent lights juxtaposing the late hour. S.H.I.E.L.D. had a busy science department, but only those who were truly mad stayed in past seven O'clock, the lab's official closing time.

Erin counted herself and Bruce Banner amongst the mad ones.

"How's the truth-serum going?" Bruce asked, taking a look through her microscope, and rolling his eyes when he noticed that it contained only a few white blood cells. Nothing of great interest.

"It's not even past cellular trials yet, Bruce. It's going to be a long time until I can say that it's safe to test on humans." Erin admitted, tapping the slide, "If these macrophages recognise the serum as self and don't end up thinking it's a virus and engulfing it, we may be onto a winner."

Bruce nodded in understanding, before going back to looking through the microscope, a tiny part of his bottom lip bit between his teeth in concentration.

When Erin had graduated with a 1st in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge three years ago, she had never in her wildest dreams imagined working _abroad,_ let alone designing synthetic compounds for one of America's top Homeland Security agencies. Science was her passion, her _life,_ and she loved every second of her job. The 'truth-serum' that Bruce was talking about was the latest product that she had been working on. A synthetic chemoreceptor that blocked synapses in the prefrontal cortex, effectively making it impossible for anybody who consumed it, orally or intravenously, to tell a lie. It only worked in theory so far, but she was currently in the middle of tests to make sure that it was safe for human consumption.

The project that she was working on now, was to make sure that the serum wouldn't act as a virus, causing the body to create an immune response and destroy it before it even had a chance to do its job.

She took another look through the microscope at the white blood cell, and smiled to herself.

"Look at this," she said, leaning back and allowing Bruce to take her place at the table.

"Incredible..." he muttered almost to himself as he looked through the microscope, "The serum is directly touching the macrophage, and there's not any sign of phagocytosis."

Erin rolled her eyes. What Bruce meant by that statement was that a white blood cell was sat very happily next to a small globule of serum without showing any signs of recognising it as a virus and trying to absorb it. Bruce just liked his science jargon.

"None whatsoever." She replied, beaming, "This might bloody work, Banner."

He smiled and patted her on the shoulder, standing back up and walking to his desk. It was weird to Erin to think that a man who seemed so calm and collected could have an alter-ego like The Hulk. It was only six months since the whole incident with Loki, an incident that Erin, thankfully, had managed to stay out of, and it was still weighing heavily on everyone's minds. It was part of the reason why Erin had begun her project. If they had had the serum when Loki was locked up in S.H.I.E.L.D's base, perhaps they would have been able to stop him before he caused such large amounts of damage.

"What are you going to call it?"

She looked up at Bruce, confused.

"Call what?"

He smirked, and pointed to her microscope, "Your serum. It's gotta have a name, and as the inventor, you should probably pick it."

She smirked, rolling her eyes. Of course, she had forgotten that she would have to name her creation.

"Erinatonium." she mockingly suggested, and Bruce chuckled.

"Jeffersonerum." He suggested, referencing her second name, Jefferson.

"Nah I don't want to be one of those people who names their creation after themselves. Einsteinium, Seborgium, Samarium, it's so big-headed."

He smiled at that, nodding his head in apparent agreement.

"Tony suggested you call it Veritaserum."

Erin couldn't help but snort at that. 'Veritaserum' was the fiction truth-telling potion that Professor Snape used against Alistair Moody in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Trust Tony to think up of something like that.

"He has seen _one_ Harry Potter movie, and suddenly he thinks he's J.K. Rowling..." She struggled to contain her laughter, reaching up to untie her hair from its bun, letting it fall in messy waves around her face, framing her eyes.

Many people said that Erin's eyes were the most interesting thing about her face, but she didn't take that as a compliment. They were deep brown, so dark they almost hid her pupils. People said that they were the colour of dark chocolate. She disagreed. Her eyes were the colour of mud.

"Natasha suggested 'pravda sok', "Bruce continued, "It means 'truth juice' in Russian.

Very literal. Nice.

She slapped her hand on the desk loudly, causing Bruce to jump, and she instantly raised both palms in shock, her eyes widening. He sighed, rubbing his brow with his hand.

"I'm not gonna hulk out if you slam your hand on the desk, Erin. It takes a little more than that. You don't have to tiptoe around me."

She gave an apologetic smile, a bit embarrassed by her extreme reaction. After the situation with Loki, everyone was a little more careful around Bruce than they needed to be. He _had_ gone full-hulk in the middle of a helicarrier, but in his defence, the circumstances probably called for it.

"What did you want to say?"

She smiled. "I have a name."

"Well go on then."

She took a deep breath, as if getting ready to say something of great gravity and importance.

"M.F.C.T.S."

Bruce's eyebrow quirked in confusion.

"What does that stand for? The chemical compounds contained in it? The neural pathways it inhibits?"

Erin stood up, grabbing her coat from the back of her chair and slipping it over her shoulders, walking over to where Bruce was sat and placing her hands on the table, a shit-eating grin on her face.

"Magic Fucking Crazy Truth Serum. Can also be known as _Motherfucking_ crazy truth serum, since it's taking me so goddamn long to perfect."

He grinned, a flash of white teeth against tanned skin.

"Brilliant."

Erin zipped her coat up and walked to the door, opening it with her key-card and turning back to face Bruce.

"I'm off for the night. See you tomorrow?"

"Mmm, hmmm." He responded non-comitally, already looking back at his own work, grabbing his pen and continuing to scribble illegible squiggles on his pad of paper. Erin winced. Physics. Ew. Not her brand of science at _all._

She closed the lab door behind her quietly, careful not to disturb Bruce, and walked out of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters into the chilly night air.

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 **ALRIGHTY chapter one is done! What do you think of it? If you liked, please vote, and please please tell me wht you think of this idea, because I want to know if I should carry it on or not.**


	2. Part One: two

**I'M BACK. after one day, which is embarrasingly keen. I can't promise that my updates will always be this regular, but I'll try my best to get at least one chapter out every 10 days from now on. In this Chapter, we are introduced to The Winter Soldier, as well as Colonel Pine, a character who will come into his own later on in this story. You guys may as well start hating him from now on, bc he isn't going to get any better.**

 **Hope you enjoy xx**

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It was freezing. Erin wrapped her arms around her chest, pulling her thin leather jacket closer to herself. She hated walking home in the dark. Even in Washington D.C, the midnight streets were slightly too deserted for her liking, but she only lived half an hour from S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters, and she couldn't afford to get the bus every day _and_ pay her rent.

Erin entered her small flat at half past twelve and was greeted almost instantly by Crookshanks, her orange tabby cat.

"Hey, sweetie," she muttered, leaning down to stroke the cat between its ears before locking her door behind her. Her flat wasn't big, and the unnecessary amount of furniture that she had added to it made it seem even smaller. She was a hoarder, she would admit that. Two dusty couches that she had rescued from charity shops sat in the middle of her main room, with a large coffee table filled with half-read books and half-drunk cups of tea in between them. She wouldn't say that they were ugly couches, but they certainly weren't 'fashionable'. They were covered in a pattern of roses and peonies, and at the price of twenty dollars each, she wouldn't have said no.

She walked into her bedroom, slipping out of her work clothes and throwing on an oversized t-shirt, before basically falling into the bed. She set the alarm on her dresser for seven O'Clock, and closed her eyes, exhausted. If the white blood cells in her microscope in the lab hadn't eaten up her serum by the time she got into work tomorrow, she would have to go-ahead to start animal trials, and then, all going well, she would have the ability to test it on humans. The thought thrilled her. Months of working and planning. Her serum would revolutionise the way that S.H.I.E.L.D performed operations.

With a smile on her face, and a cat curled up on her chest, Erin drifted off to sleep.

* * *

...

"Tell me that again, from the beginning."

Corporal Steven Pine was annoyed, to say the least. It was late at night, too late, and he should be home with his wife, but instead, was having to listen to hearsay from a Private who thought that he had stumbled upon his big break.

"They say that it's a scientific breakthrough in the Chemical synthesis community," The younger man continued, his greasy blonde hair combed back behind his eyes, stood up ramrod straight to attention. Pine noticed that his hands, though clasped firmly in front of him, were shaking. He smiled inwardly at that. It was nice to know that he could still put fear into the hearts of those under his command.

He knew that he was an intimidating man. His 6"3' build and 250lb frame made sure that nobody messed with him when he didn't want them to. A thick scar ran down the left side of his chiselled face, a memory of days gone past, and his greying dark hair was shaved short to his head.

No wonder the Private was scared of him.

"People also say that the moon landing was faked, Private. Gossip spreads around people like a virus. How do I know that you're telling the truth?"

The Private shifted uncomfortably, breaking eye contact with the more superior man.

"Some of the science workers were talking about it today at lunch, Sir. They were saying that there was this new girl, an English chemist. They were saying that she'd synthesised a hypothetical model and was putting it through cellular testing. Apparently it's a neurotransmitter that blocks synapses in the prefrontal cortex. "

"In English, Private."

"For all intents and purposes, it's a truth-telling serum."

Pine leant back in his chair, interlocking his fingers and staring intently at the Private. This was interesting. Private Goodwinson was one of the hundreds of HYDRA agents who had been placed inside S.H.I.E.L.D. as part of a covert operation to gain intelligence, and if what he was saying had any hint of truth in it, he may just be the most valuable man in the whole of HYDRA.

"Did you catch the name of this English girl?"

The Private coughed slightly.

"Jefferson, or Jeffers. Something like that. I didn't catch her first name."

Pine nodded and leant forwards.

"Keep an eye on it. Wait until cellular trials are complete."

"And then?"

"And then we're going to have a little talk with Miss Jefferson."

The Private nodded in understanding. A 'little talk' with the Colonel wasn't something that anybody enjoyed. He was a harsh man, and he wasn't against using... unethical methods.

"Dismissed."

The Private nodded in respect, leaving the room in silence, and Colonel Pine opened up his laptop, easily accessing S.H.I.E.L.D's database. He smiled to himself. Since posting men and women on the inside, he had access to all of S.H.I.E.L.D's secrets, even the ones that they didn't want him to know.

He sifted through employees to find the scientists, and then narrowed his search down to Chemical engineers. A list of around three hundred names popped up on his screen. He typed 'Jeffers' first, but came up with no results, so tried 'Jefferson'.

Two names popped up. One of them, Steve Jefferson, belonged to a sixty-four-year-old male graduate from Harvard University. Not what he was looking for. The second name looked far more convincing.

Erin Jefferson.

He clicked on her name, and her profile popped up. Twenty-three years old, born in Manchester, but educated in Cambridge, where she achieved a 1st. His eyebrows raised. Smart girl.

He looked at the photo on her profile and smiled to himself. She looked like she would be easy to break. Waves of dark blonde hair surrounded a stern pale face, from which intensely dark brown eyes almost shone. She had a thin, straight nose, lips that were slightly too full for traditional beauty, but somehow, it worked on her face.

He picked up the phone by the side of his computer and dialled the office, printing all of the information he could about Erin Jefferson.

"Yes?" The tinny voice on the other side of the receiver.

"Send him in."

Colonel Pine waited for less than thirty seconds before the door to his room opened quietly, and the Soldier walked in. He didn't say a word, but the power radiating from him was almost tangible. In the dim light of the room, the metal arm glistened with unspoken potential.

"Yes?"

His voice was low, a distinct Brooklyn accent that echoed in the small area. He walked purposely over to the desk, menacing in his gait.

"This girl..." the Colonel passed over the printed out sheets and handed them to the Soldier. He studied them intently, his face passive, "I want you to keep an eye on her. We're going to bring her in in a few months."

The Soldier nodded, his face not betraying any sign of emotion.

"She has something that we want." The Colonel continued, "She's synthesised a serum which our intelligence tells us can make it impossible for the ingester to lie."

The first hint of movement appeared on the Soldier's face. His left eyebrow raised slightly over an impossibly blue eye in surprise.

"She _invented_ it?" He asked, "She's so young."

The Colonel nodded, a small smirk on his face. "A prodigy, by the looks of it. She works for S.H.I.E.L.D's Chemical Engineering department. Her address is on that paper," He gestured to the sheets that the Soldier was holding, "I want you to do some surveillance, scope out her house. Figure out a way that you're going to bring her in without causing a fuss. We need to wait for the results of her cellular trials to come in, but once she finds out that this serum is safe for humans... well. I'll have a few questions to ask her."

The Soldier's face remained still, not showing any emotion at the Colonel's words. This was just another job for him.

"Will there be anything else, Sir?" he asked. Pine shook his head, and the Soldier nodded and turned to go. He left the room, closing the door behind him, and looked intently at the papers in his hand.

She was a smart girl, that much was obvious. She grew up, according to the S.H.I.E.L.D. database, in a poor area of Manchester, but gained a scholarship to the University of Cambridge, one of the most prestigious educational centres in England. After passing her Biochemistry degree with a 1st, she had taught biology in underprivileged High Schools for two years, before travelling to America, and beginning her Career in S.H.I.E.L.D. Nothing out of the ordinary.

He studied her profile thoroughly, before folding the papers up and tucking them in his back pocket, walking away from the Colonels office.

He had a new mission.

 **As usual, if you liked this chapter, please PLEASE vote, it only takes a second, and the more votes this story gets, the (hopefully) more reads it will get, so vote away. Please tell me what you thought as well. xx**


	3. Part One: three

**I have no idea why I'm getting all of these out so quickly when I should be revising for my A-Levels but here we are**

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Erin hated rats. The lab rats that S.H.I.E.L.D. had acquired were smaller than an average rat, slightly more white than grey, but that did nothing to prevent her skin from crawling every time that she saw them. She figured it was something to do with the tails, protruding from the animals' backs like little furry worms. She looked down at the cage in front of her, holding her clipboard in one hand and a sheet of blood test results in the other, and shivered.

Cellular trials had been a flying success. Every white blood cell that she had tested M.F.C.T.S. against hadn't reacted abnormally at all, so the heads of the ChemEng department had given her the go-ahead to start animal trials. Unfortunately for her, that involved rats.

The rat that she was focusing on, subject B565, whom the biology department had aptly nicknamed 'Mouselini' due to his tendency to bite and the slightly darker patch of fur above his top lip that looked an awful lot like a moustache, scurried through the clear plastic tubing, healthy as anything. Erin couldn't help the small smile that flickered at the corner of her mouth at the sight. She had already tested the rat's urine and found it to contain traces of M.F.C.T.S, meaning that the serum was being passed straight through the rat's system and straight out without any complications. She had taken a small blood sample from the rat, three days after injecting it with a miniscule concentration of her synthesised serum, and it had come back completely clear.

She was one step closer to human trials, and she was _ecstatic_ for them. Her serum, a synthetic compound that had taken years of hard work and months of trials to perfect, was very almost a reality.

Erin opened up the metal rat cage and picked the small creature up, avoiding its sharp teeth. She'd already been bitten at least three times during animal trials, she wasn't keen to make it four. She gave it a final look over, checking its fur, eyes, tail, even its teeth and toenails, to make sure that the serum had had no obvious external affects. The rat was perfectly healthy.

"I've done it. I've bloody done it..." she muttered to herself, slightly disbelievingly.

She placed Mouselini back in his cage carefully, and took the piece of paper off her clipboard, walking over to her computer. She opened up her M.F.C.T.S. folder and inputted the data, before closing the file and switching off the computer, placing the sheet of paper in the shredder. Her work was top secret, of course. If the serum was to ever get into the hands of a person without the right intentions, it could be disastrous. That was the main reason that she used her own computer, which she had managed to encrypt herself, meaning that all the data was meaningless to somebody who was unable to unlock it. It wasn't that she didn't trust S.H.I.E.L.D, but she preferred not to share her test results on its company-wide database.

She threw her laptop in her rucksack and left the lab, locking the door behind her with her key card, and almost walking into a young man on her way out.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry," she muttered, looking up in embarrassment. He was tall, with his light blonde hair scraped back behind his ears.

She'd seen him around the base, and figured he must be a science worker. That or a trainee, the guy barely looked nineteen, his pale complexion looking even paler underneath the bright lights of the hallway.

"No, no. It's my fault. I'm sorry," he laughed nervously. The poor guy seemed terrified, his hands were shaking, even though he had them clasped tightly in front of him, "I'm Goodwinson."

She smiled at him.

"Nice to meet you, Goodwinson. Have a first name to go with that surname?"

She started walking towards the cafeteria, and he followed suit. He towered over her in height, but already she was leading the conversation.

He laughed awkwardly, "James Goodwinson. I'm new here." He said as an apology. Erin couldn't help but smile to herself. She was the same when she first started S.H.I.E.L.D, absolutely terrified of everybody, especially the other scientists, who always seemed to be coming out of labs stinking of smoke and sulphur. It wasn't until she met Bruce Banner, a year earlier, when he had come in to help to track the tesseract, that she had found a true friend in the science community. Despite his intimidating height and, well... occasional physical abnormalities, Bruce had been her rock during the trials for M.F.C.T.S.

"Ah, well you probably don't know me, then..." she smiled.

He coughed awkwardly. "Jefferson, right? Or Jeffers? I've heard the other Chemists talking about you."

Well that took her by surprise. Erin had no idea that her influence was that far-reaching. The scientists were known to be a gossipy bunch, though, so she figured that she should have expected it. The pair reached the cafeteria, and Erin picked a sandwich out of the fridge and leaned in to him, whispering, "Don't believe a word they've said about me. They're all wrong."

"They said that you were working on a serum that could force the taker to tell the truth."

Her eyebrows raised as she payed for her sandwich and thanked the cashier, walking over to an empty table and sitting down, quickly followed by James Goodwinson, who had nothing in his hands but a small cup of black coffee.

"Well they were right about me then. Fancy that!" Erin joked. James suddenly seemed far more interested in the conversation.

"So it's true? You've synthesised it?"

Erin rolled her eyes and took a bite of her sandwich, cheese and ham on brown bread, her usual.

"It's theoretically synthesised." she explained, "I produced a tiny amount for animal testing, but the rest of it is all up here." she tapped to the side of her head. She hadn't written the formula of F.M.C.T.S down anywhere for fear that it would fall into the wrong hands, preferring to memorise the recipe instead.

"How are animal trials going?" James continued, a lot more talkative than he had been before. Erin smiled to herself. It was usually like this was with the new employees, they were shocked and amazed by all the technology. To somebody who wasn't around this kind of stuff all day, it made it sound like a spy film.

"Pretty well. I left Mouselini looking pretty healthy. The serum doesn't seem to have affected him at all. I think it's about time I start human trials."

A thin blonde eyebrow quirked up in confusion.

" _Mouselini?_ "

Erin snorted, a very unladylike sound. It made sense that the new guy wouldn't know the nicknames for all the lab rats yet.

"He's one of the rodents in our testing lab," she explained, "Subject B565. He's a right little arsehole, always biting people's fingers and shitting on their hands when they pick him up. He kinda has this black bit of fur on his face that looks like a moustache so-"

"You mixed Mouse and Mussolini together?" There was a hint of a disbelieving smile on his lips, and Erin rubbed the crease between her eyebrows with one hand, smiling.

"Yeah... yeah we did. As embarrassing as that is."

He took a sip of his coffee, and his face turned serious again.

"So what exactly is _in_ this serum, then?"

Erin smiled a conspiratorial smile. She had been asked that question more times than she could count over the past few months, and she had the exact same answer every time.

"If I told you, Goodwinson, I'd have to kill you."

James let out a bark of laughter at her comment, before taking another sip of his hot coffee, but Erin couldn't help but notice the slight tightening of his lip in annoyance at her response.

* * *

The Soldier adjusted his binoculars, looking through them intently at the sight on the opposite side of the street. He had rented out a flat opposite Erin Jefferson, payed with cash, of course, and for the last three weeks, he had been studying her intently. He knew her patterns.

At half past seven each morning she would begrudgingly drag herself out of bed, feed her cat, grab a slice of toast for breakfast and set off at eight O'clock. She walked to S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters with a brisk pace, getting there in less than half an hour. The time that she arrived back at her flat was far less regular. Occasionally she would be back by six or seven, and would make herself a cup of tea and snuggle up on one of the disgusting couches that littered her front room, reading one of the countless books that she had strewn across the small flat on every available surface. Sometimes, though, she wouldn't return until at least half past midnight. On these nights, she fell straight into bed, sometimes forgetting to even take her shoes off.

The Soldier had even gone into her flat once, one of the days that she was out at work, just to scope the place out. If he was to be taking her to Pine, he would probably be taking her at night, when her defences were down, and a knowledge of the layout of the flat would be essential. The first thing that he noticed was the mess. He had expected an anal level of tidiness from a girl who was an apparent prodigy, but her entire flat was in disarray. He had walked in silently, his feet making no sound on the wooden floorboards, but as he quietly closed the door behind him, he felt a small brush of pressure on his left ankle, and his heart had leapt to his throat. He had pulled his gun out instinctively, pointing it at the mystery object which had made him jump. A fat orange cat that had a face that looked like it had been smashed in by a truck stared back at him, affronted, and he rolled his eyes at himself.

Scared by a cat. He was losing his edge.

A ghost of half of a smile fluttered on his lips when he noticed the books, each of them half-read, scattered all around the room. Romance novels and Action books, Documents on Biodiversity and a Chemical thesaurus, all placed face down in various precarious positions.

She was reading now, Bucky noticed, as he adjusted the focus on his binoculars to look through his window directly into her window on the opposite side of the road. She was curled up in a ball on one of the hideous floral couches in her main room, a copy of Othello in her hands. Her cat, desperate for attention, was pawing at her feet, refusing to be ignored.

The Soldier sighed to himself, placing the binoculars down on the windowsill and rubbing the ghost of a beard that was beginning to form on his chin. He had immersed himself in this girl's life for the last three weeks, and it was exhausting. He couldn't wait to just fucking _kidnap_ her and get onto his next mission. It was unusual for an assignment to last for this long.

Pine must really want this girl.

The Soldier closed the curtains and walked across the bare unfurnished room to the unmade bed, where he sat down, flexing his metal arm, which had become cramped after a day of inactivity. He flexed the fingers, feeling the pressure in his shoulder ease as he moved them. As useful as a metal arm could be, he couldn't deny that it could get uncomfortable.

He reached over to the side of his bed, from which he pulled Erin Jefferson's private files, having one last look through them. Hopefully, he would get this over with soon.

The Winter Soldier wasn't good at waiting.

* * *

 **AAhhh there we go. 3 chapters in 3 days holy moly. And do you guys recognise Jacob Goodwinson, the cheeky bastard? Please please (please) vote and comment, because it really inspires me and motivates me to keep on trucking. xx**


	4. Part One: four

**Firstly, thank you so much to everybody who reviewed, I really really appreciate it! It makes my day when I see someone has commented.**

 **Alrighty on with the story. Some action will happen in the next chapter ( _finally_ ) but you guys have to sit through some science first.**

* * *

"If you could just sign here, please." Bruce Banner pointed to a small dotted line on the liability waiver with his pen. Joe Stevenson, a particularly brave member of the engineering department, had volunteered to be the first human for M.F.C.T.S. to be tested on. He nodded, signing his name with a flourish, before taking a seat in the chair that had been placed out for him. Erin smiled and walked up to him, placing her briefcase on the table beside him, and pulling out a small syringe filled with clear colourless liquid.

"Alright, Joe," She said with a smile, "In this tube I have a very small concentration of M.F.C.T.S, a synthetic compound which, hopefully, will make it impossible for you to lie to me."

A mumble ran through the room. The lab was supposed to be empty, apart from Bruce Banner and herself, but when the scientific community had heard that human trials would be taking place today, they had all rushed to be there, excited to see what would happen. It was a lot more stressful than it should have been for Erin. Instead of only having Banner and Joe to witness if she failed, she instead had 90% of S.H.I.E.L.D's Science Officers cramped into the tiny lab, all hanging on to her every word.

She looked behind her shoulder and winced. The room was packed with people. Tony Stark was sat on a table at the front, his legs crossed, the blue light from his arc reactor shining out from underneath his black V-neck T-shirt. He held a half-eaten apple in his hand. He had wished her luck before she had gone in, patting her roughly on the shoulder. Now he gave her a wink and took another bite of his apple. No too far away from him stood James Goodwinson, the young man who had seemed so interested in her work a few weeks ago. He was staring at her intently, his hands, still shaking, clasped tightly in front of him.

She sighed and turned back to Joe. She was never good with an audience.

"We have a list of questions here," She picked up the piece of paper on the desk, "Which I'm going to ask you once you have been given the serum intravenously. All that you have to do is lie."

Joe nodded. He understood what he was doing, and he was getting paid a fair bit of money to do it. It was a great opportunity for him. Just answer a few questions, and end up $1000 richer.

Erin looked at Bruce and he nodded, setting up an IV drip. He took the syringe from Erin, injecting its contents into a clear plastic bag of saline solution and hooking it up to a drip. He disposed of the empty syringe in a 'sharps' bin, and took out another sterile needle.

"If you could just hand me your arm, Stevenson..." He murmured. Erin couldn't help but smile to herself. It was obvious when Banner went into 'Doctor mode', his voice and mannerisms changed from a shy but cheeky physicist to a calm and collected professional in seconds.

Joe rolled up his shirt sleeve and handed Banner his arm, and Bruce carefully searched for a vein, before slipping the needle, or _cannula_ , in and connecting it to the IV drip. The tube filled with clear liquid as the serum began to flow directly into Joe's veins.

The room was silent.

Erin picked up the sheet of questions and perched herself on the corner of a nearby desk. The room was silent, everybody waiting with baited breath. She looked at Bruce, who held his finger up, looking at the level of the solution that was moving down the IV tubing on a small scale.

"One microgram." He said. Erin nodded.

"Okay. We'll start easy. What's your name?"

Joe Stevenson nodded his head, looking directly at Erin, rather than at the cannula through which the M.F.C.T.S. was dripping.

"Leonardo DiCaprio."

A muttered giggle ran through the room. No, the half-balding, slightly overweight engineer was certainly _not_ Leonardo DiCaprio. Erin nodded at him, making a note on her sheet. She hadn't expected the serum to work at such a low concentration. She motioned to Bruce to keep increasing the volume.

Ten seconds went by before the physicist said, "Two micrograms."

"Where do you live?"

"The moon."

Alright, so it hadn't kicked in at two micrograms either. That was alright. It was to be expected. Erin couldn't help but feel slightly sick as she heard somebody in the audience cough impatiently, waiting for the action to start. An uncomfortable feeling of anxiety raised in her stomach. What if the serum didn't work at all? What if all of her months of work had been for nothing? She felt Bruce's eyes on her, and she looked over to him. He gave her a comforting smile. He knew how much this meant to her.

"Three micrograms."

"What is your date of birth?"

"April twelfth, 1765."

Erin rolled her eyes. Joe might be getting on in years, but she was pretty certain that he wasn't over 200. Her heartrate began to increase. She was beginning to wish that she hadn't told anybody about these trials, it would have prevented so many people from showing up. She looked at Bruce, who was still staring intently at the scale.

"Four micrograms."

"Do you have any children?"

"N..."

Joe cut off his word before he finished it, and Erin looked up, intrigued. His face was twisted slightly, as if he were trying hard to remember a forgotten song lyric.

"N...yes."

Erin's eyes widened. She looked at Bruce, who looked at the sheet of paper in his hand which contained the 'correct' answers to all of Erin's question."

"He has kids..." Bruce muttered.

A murmur went through the room as the congregation realised what had just happened.

Joe had told the truth.

"Five micrograms."

Erin stood up from her sitting position, full of energy. This was happening. This was _really fucking happening._ She glanced again at the piece of paper at the fifth question.

"What's your wife's name?"

Joe shook his head, as if a fly was buzzing slightly too close to his ear.

"Janet."

Erin looked expectantly at Bruce, who glanced at the answers in his hand, and looked up at Erin with an expression of surprised awe.

"He's telling the truth. Erin."

"Fucking hell."

She had said it slightly louder than she had meant to, and a rumble of laughter ran though the room.

"Are you trying to lie?" Erin asked Joe, her face now inches from his, an unscripted question.

"Yes."

"But you can't lie?"

"...No."

"What does it feel like?" Erin asked. She didn't know where she was going with this, but she was on a high, ecstatic that her project was finally working.

"It feels like every time I try to make up a lie, my brain forgets it before I can say it..." Joe was struggling to put it into words.

Erin nodded, and looked at Banner.

"You can un-hook him now."

Bruce nodded, carefully removing the needle from the epidermis of Joe's skin, placing it, along with the clear bag which contained the rest of the serum solution into a bag labelled 'clinical waste'. The clinical waste bags were incinerated at the end of the day, so Erin had no worries that the serum would get into the wrong hands. To make extra sure, she planned on taking the bag and burning it herself once everybody had left the room. If Erin was anything, it was careful.

She clapped Joe on the shoulder.

"Don't let anyone ask you any personal questions for the next few hours. Wait for the serum to wear off."

A chuckle ran through the room, followed by the sound of one person clapping. She looked around to see Tony Stark, stood up, applauding her feverently. Within a few seconds, the rest of the room had caught on, until the whole tiny lab was filled with the sounds of clapping. One person, Erin guessed it was one of her BioChem co-workers, who had witnessed her nearly tear her hair out over this formula more than once, actually let out a loud 'whoop' from the back of the room. She grinned. It had been tough, but she had finally done it.

The serum worked.

It bloody worked.

James Goodwinson clapped along with all the others, a beaming smile on his face, but not for the same reason. He excused himself past the cheering masses of science workers, and slipped out of the room unseen. Once he had closed the door behind him, muting the incessant cheering, he picked his phone out of his pocket. Disposable. Untraceable.

He only had one number saved, that of Colonel Pine, leader of his branch of HYDRA, and a man who certainly did not like to be kept waiting. He typed out the text with speed and precision, sending it quickly and slipping his phone back into his pocket. He smiled to himself.

He better be getting a promotion for this.

It was about to get interesting.

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 **THERE WE GO ITS ALL ABOUT TO KICK OFF**

As always, please like and review x


	5. Part One: five

**Lights... camera... ACTION (finally some action happens in this chapter.) If you're liking this story, please vote and review x**

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The Soldier was finally about to _do_ something, and he was _so_ ready for it.

Missions didn't usually last this long, but then again, most of the missions that he was sent on didn't result with the main focus ending up _alive_ , so he guessed that this counted as special circumstances. He had received a text earlier that day from an unknown number. It simply read, 'Tonight'.

There was no misunderstanding what that meant.

He looked again at his watch, twenty to twelve. Erin had come home from work today late, only arriving at the front door of the block of flats at half past ten. She had, the Soldier had noticed, a definitive spring to her step. So the human trials must have been a success. The serum must have worked.

He sighed and picked a small dagger out of one of the many pockets of his leather waistcoat, calming himself as he felt the familiar weight if the metal in his palm. He spun it in his fingers a few times. He wasn't expecting to need to use any of this on the girl, she was five foot two, a hundred and thirty pounds, max. Tonight wouldn't be hard.

His main weapon would, in fact, be the small bottle of chloroform that sat, unlabelled, on his bedside table. The plan was to enter her flat silently, and whilst she was asleep, drug her unconscious so that he could quietly, and without arousing suspicion, carry her outside where there would be a company car waiting for him.

What could possibly go wrong?

The Soldier was always ready for the unexpected, however. That was how he had survived this long. His left hand unconsciously travelled to his belt, where a loaded automatic pistol lay, ready for use. His cold metal fingers grasped the trigger, and he smiled to himself as he felt the pressure of it in his palm. His metal arm hadn't been implanted with nerves, but the powers that be at HYDRA had thought it useful to equip it with pressure sensors.

He took another glance at his watch, ten to twelve, and nodded to himself. She should be asleep by now. He threw his leather jacket over his torso, there was no need to cause extra conspicuousness with his metal arm on show. He stood up, picking up the small bottle of chloroform and pulling a cotton cloth from his back pocket. He unstopped the bottle and poured a small amount of the sickly-sweet smelling liquid onto the centre of it, before folding it up and putting it back in his pocket. The Soldier tucked a strand of loose dark hair behind his left ear, and gave the room one final look, making sure that he hadn't left anything. Satisfied that he hadn't, he closed the door and jogged down the empty stairwell, his heavy boots making almost no sound on the wooden flooring. He handed his keys in at the front desk.

"Did you enjoy your stay here, Sir? Was everything to your satis-" The too-loud, too-polite, too-made-up receptionist asked him, her whitened teeth shining from underneath a bright orange face. One look at his face shut her up, and she trailed off her sentence weakly, not even bothering to finish it as he strode out of the double doors and into the cool night.

The air was cold, but he didn't shiver or wrap his arms tighter around himself to keep the warmth in.

All the warmth had been drained out of him anyway. There wasn't anything else worth saving.

He crossed the empty road at a jog, reaching the block of flats opposite hastily and slipping inside unnoticed. It was too bright in the building, the fluorescent lighting making him squint slightly after his time outside. Erin was on floor three, and the Soldier ran up the stairs two at a time to get there. He was hardly out of breath by the time he stood outside her door thanks to his advanced fitness and genetics. There was a small metal pin in his back pocket, and he lifted it out, careful to avoid the chloroform-soaked cloth. Twisting it into a complicated shape, the man bent down, sliding the pin into the lock on the front door and moving it with an expert precision. There was a quiet click

He smiled to himself.

This was going to be easy.

He slipped in through the door, closing it quietly behind him, so the room in which he was standing was bathed in total darkness. That wasn't a problem for him, he had been here before, he had memorised every detail of this room.

Taking a cautious step forward, and then one to the side to avoid one of the revolting charity-shop couches that Erin had deemed it necessary to buy, the Soldier slowly made his way through the front room. A tiny sound came from his left, and he froze, reaching instinctively for the sharp dagger at his belt. The noise morphed into a purr and he rolled his eyes at himself. That fucking cat _again_.

He felt it rub up against his leg, a warm soft lump, and he bent down slightly to stroke it under its chin, his fingers massaging the thick fur. This would be a hell of a lot easier if she didn't have a pet. The cat let out another purr, slightly louder this time, and the Soldier's heart rate increased. She couldn't hear him, he couldn't have her waking up before he had a chance to knock her out. He quickly continued his walk towards the door of her bedroom, which he pushed open gently.

A tiny creak. He heard a small sigh from the bed in the middle of the room, and froze in his place, not daring to breathe. After what seemed like an impossibly long time, there was a shuffling of covers as she adjusted her position and carried on sleeping.

The Soldier stalked in, his body movements cat-like until he was next to her bed. His eyes had adjusted slightly to the dark, and he could make out the silhouette of her curly blonde hair. He smiled again to himself. This was too easy.

From his back pocket, he pulled out the small rag that he had previously soaked in chloroform and brought it up to her face.

Suddenly a sharp pain exploded in his groin, and he staggered back, dropping the cloth, met by blinding light as the lamp next to Erin's bed was switched on. Looking up in shock, he saw her scramble out of bed and move to kick him again, this time in the head. He hadn't been expecting this. He dodged her kick easily, grabbing hold of her bare leg and pulling it, hard, sending her crashing to the floor alongside him. He couldn't help but notice her lack of dress, short shorts and a baggy concert t-shirt made for good sleeping clothes, but not something easy to fight in. She let out a huff of air as she fell, winding herself on the hard floor. The Soldier took her distraction and leapt up, grabbing the cloth from where it had fallen and turning around, aiming to straddle her and hold it over her face. By the time he had turned around, however, she was gone, her bedroom door wide open.

"Fuck." He muttered to himself as he strode out of the bedroom into the main room, which was now also bathed in light. He glanced immediately to the door but noticed that it was still firmly shut. She hadn't run? That didn't make any sense.

A crash from his left brought him spinning round to face Erin, all five foot two of her, threateningly wielding a purple plastic spatula at his face. He nearly laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. He raised an eyebrow at her, and the angry look on her face grew more pronounced.

"Who the hell are you?" She asked, keeping the spatula between them like a shield. The Soldier rolled his eyes and walked towards her, cloth in hand. He could overpower her easily.

"Don't come any closer. I'm warning you." Her accent was broad, Northern English.

The corner of his mouth raised up in a grim caricature of a smirk.

"You're going to fight me off with kitchen utensils?"

Her eyes widened slightly when she heard him speak, she hadn't been expecting that. He took another step forwards, and then another. Erin stepped back until her back was pressed up against the wall, spatula still held out in front of her like a sword.

"Who do you work for?"

The Soldier was silent. He reached her, and she swung the spatula towards him, hoping to catch him in the face, but he lifted his hand with impossibly fast reflexes, grabbing hold of the handle. Her eyes flickered from his eyes to his hand, which she was beginning to notice looked a lot more silver than regular skin.

"What the f-"

She didn't get the chance to finish her sentence, as the Soldier took his final step forwards, covering her mouth and nose with the cloth, pressing her against the weight of the wall with his body. She brought her hands up, trying to claw at his face, but he moved his head back out of reach, holding her in place with just his hand. After a few seconds of struggling, her movements became weaker and the lids over her impossibly dark eyes began to close. She went limp. He waited for a few seconds more, then removed his hand, catching her floppy body as it fell, unconscious. The cloth was slipped back into his pocket, and he lifted the girl up against his chest. She wasn't light, but her weight certainly wasn't a problem for him. He walked to the door, taking one last look at her now-ravaged front room, before flicking the light switch off with his elbow and closing the door behind him.

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	6. Part One: six

**_Guess who's back... back again... a terrible fanfiction writer who uses her character's pain as a plot device is back... tell a friend..._**

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Erin awoke with a stale taste in her mouth, and a headache that felt like an elephant had sat on her cranium. She figured she must have had slightly too much alcohol at the bar-crawl last night, set up by Tony as a 'congratulations' for her serum finally working, even if she wussed out three bars in and decided to go home.

That was when she felt the thick rope tied tightly around her ankles.

Her eyes shot open instantly, her groggy mind struggling to come to terms with what had happened. She was in a small room, the grubby walls white-washed, and a flickering fluorescent light hanging precariously from the cracked ceiling. Erin was lying on a lumpy mattress in the corner of the room, her hands and feet bound.

"Shit..." she muttered, wriggling slightly in an attempt to loosen the ropes which seemed to be getting tighter by the minute. Her heart was pounding. This was bad, very very bad. The room smelt damp, and she could hear the steady dripping of water somewhere.

Her panicked mind wandered back to the events of last night. She had got home, slightly tipsy, at roughly half past ten, and gone straight to bed. How had she got here?

Of course. She remembered now. The man with the silver hand, he had drugged her. That bastard.

She sat up awkwardly, which was when she realised what she was wearing. A short pair of black briefs and a slightly oversized concert T-shirt. Her feet were bare. She didn't even have any pockets that she may have put something in. She was completely fucked.

Her hands, thankfully, were tied in front of her, not behind her, and she brought her wrists up to her mouth, trying to untie the tight knots with her teeth. She was interrupted by a loud creak, and she whipped her head around to see the small door in the corner of the room opening, and four men stepping inside. The first was a giant, easily six foot ten. His greying black hair was cropped close to the curves of his head, but the thing that Erin noticed most was his scar. A thick ugly tattoo of singed flesh and muscle than ran the whole way from his forehead to his chin, down the left side of his face, narrowly missing his eye. The way that he carried himself made Erin automatically assume that he was in charge.

Behind him walked two men in grey jackets, one slightly taller than the other. The taller one was blonde, his hair scruffy and a sprinkling of a beard on his chin, but the second one had his brown hair shaved almost to his head. They were big, the muscles in their arms straining slightly against the fabric of their coats.

Erin shuffled back slightly.

The last man to walk in, she recognised. The man with the long brown hair who she'd tried to chin with a spatula in the middle of her kitchen. He walked differently from the others. Whilst they strutted, showing their superiority off clearly, he stalked in, cat-like, the power in his steps not needing to be said out loud.

"What the fuck is going on?" She asked, her voice sounding surprisingly brave considering the fact that she was practically shitting herself in fear, "Who the fuck are you?"

The tall man spoke first, his voice echoing in the small dingy room.

"My name is Colonel Pine."

Erin rolled her eyes and the man smiled, the scar on his face contorting as the skin moved. He glanced behind him to the two men in white coats and nodded, and they walked towards Erin, grabbing her under her arms and hoisting her up into a standing position. She tried desperately to elbow them, but with her hands tied tightly in front of her, it was of no use.

"Take those ropes off her," The man with the scar continued, "She's a guest here, after all."

The men obeyed him, the shorter one with dark hair removing a knife from his back pocket and slicing through the thick ropes between her wrists and the one with blonde hair removing the ones binding her ankles together. They stepped away from her, leaving her standing on her own. Erin rubbed her sore arms, glaring at Colonel Pine.

"Is this is how you treat guests I'd hate to see what you do to the people you don't like."

Pine's left lip quirked upwards at her statement and took a step towards her. Subconsciously she stepped back, her feet hitting the lumpy mattress on the floor behind her.

"We've heard a lot about you, Erin Jefferson."

"Is that right?"

She considered running for it, but the two men flanking her at either side were too close. They would grab her instantly. Even if she managed to bypass them and slip past Colonel Pine, the tall man at the door would stop her from leaving. He still stood there, unblinking. Her gaze ran to his left arm which was shimmering slightly in the light. It hit her suddenly that it wasn't a skin condition, his entire arm seemed to be forged out of some sort of metal. Her eyebrows creased in confusion.

The man looked up and noticed where her gaze was trained. He stiffened slightly, keeping his eyes away from her, refusing to look directly at her.

"Your 'truth serum'," Pine air quoted the phrase in inverted commas with thick fingers, "Is causing quite a stir in the scientific community, is it not?"

Erin's heart dropped to her toes. This was about M.F.C.T.S. Of course it was. She should have known to keep it quieter than she had done. She'd been stupid, on reflection, telling everybody in S.H.I.E.L.D. about her initiative, even asking people along to come and see human trials. But even then, the secret should have stayed inside S.H.I.E.L.D.

"How do you know about that?"

Pine turned away from her, holding his hands behind his back and taking a walk around her dingy room.

"We have people everywhere, Jefferson. Especially in S.H.I.E.L.D. A lot of people in S.H.I.E.L.D. A certain 'James Goodwinson' told me all about your little formula."

" _Goodwinson?!"_ Erin almost yelled in surprise. The guy couldn't be older than nineteen. So young, and already committing industrial espionage. His parents must be so proud.

"And you see," Pine continued, turning back around and facing her, "We want it."

Erin closed her eyes, thinking. There was no way of possibly getting out of this, but that didn't mean that she had to give them the formula for M.F.C.T.S. She had promised herself not to let it get into the hands of people who would use it in the wrong way, and she was almost positive that this lumbering hulk of a man would _certainly_ use it in the wrong way. Stalling him was her best option.

"Who do you work for?" She already knew the answer to the question before she had answered it. The small insignia sewn onto the front pocket of Colonel Pine's jacket told her instantly the organisation that he was a part of.

"Oh, how rude of me. Here we are, getting to know each other, and I haven't even formally introduced myself." The Colonel was enjoying this. He held out his hand to Erin, "Colonel Stephen Pine, HYDRA."

Somehow, hearing it said out loud made this situation all the more real. Erin kept her hands firmly to her sides, refusing to shake the Colonels', preferring to look him dead in the eye instead. After a while, he shrugged and brought his hand down, not letting her small act of rebellion phase him.

"This is Louis," He gestured to the tall blonde man, "And Andrew." He then pointed to the shorter man.

"What about Optimus Prime over there?" Erin asked, nodding her head towards the man with the metal arm. He snapped his head up at her words, confusion on his face. He looked from her to the Colonel, not saying a word.

Pine chuckled.

"He doesn't have a name. Not one that you need to know, anyway."

The man looked back down again.

"Now how about this formula?"

Erin rolled her eyes.

"If you think that you're ever going to get it out of me, I have bad news for you."

For the first time during their meeting, the easy-going smile on Captain Pine's face disappeared, replaced with a blank look of irritation.

"We have the ability to make this stay very unpleasant for you, Erin."

She snorted, and gestured around the dark room, "Like it's all been roses up to here?"

Pine stepped back and looked at the man to Erin's right. Louis? Or was it Andrew? Whoever it was, they came up behind Erin, and wrapped a thick hand around her neck, their fingers constricting slowly. Erin gasped in surprise, instinctively throwing her elbow back in an attempt to hit him in the groin but he caught her hand with his other arm, pushing it up her back painfully. Colonel Pine took another step towards her.

"I'm not the kind of man who likes to ask for something twice."

He glanced at the writing on her shirt and rolled his eyes.

"Take That? I heard that they use a lot of autotune." Seriously. He was getting his henchman to practically dislocate her arm and he was going to mock her music taste at the same time?

Erin let out a small grunt of pain.

"They're surprisingly good live."

A sharp burst of air left his nose by way of laughter, and he moved his eyes to the man to Erin's left. Andrew? Louis? Whichever one wasn't currently suffocating her. Erin rolled her eyes.

"Is this really neces-"

Her sentence was cut off as a sharp fist buried itself in her stomach, punching the wind from her lungs. She bent double, pain wracking through her body. Taking gulping breaths, she looked upwards at the Colonel, who was glaring down at her with something akin to smugness on his face.

"What does M.T.C.F.S. stand for?"

She steadied herself, her arm still held tightly behind her back.

"You probably don't want to know the answer to that..."

An eyebrow raised on the colonel, and he nodded at the man behind Erin again. Another punch came, this time to her kidney. Well, she'll be pissing blood for a while then.

"Fuuuuuuuck..." she breathed out in pain, her side throbbing. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted the unnamed soldier. His gaze was averted.

"What does it stand for?" The Colonel asked again, his face now inches from hers. Erin let out a deep sigh.

"... Motherfucking crazy truth serum."

The Colonel was silent. He took a step back, a look of disbelief etched onto his twisted features.

"You named your creation... Motherfucking-"

"Crazy Truth Serum, yeah." Finished Erin, clenching her torso in expectation of another punch but it didn't come. Instead, Pine let out a burst of laughter.

"What's in this 'Motherfucking Serum'?"

Erin raised an eyebrow at him, still slightly bent over from the force of the first two punches.

"Fairy dust."

The smile on the Colonel's face disappeared almost instantly and before Erin could come up with another answer, he had stepped forwards and slapped her across the face. Hard.

Erin felt her jaw protest in agony, and she tasted copper in her mouth.

"Don't fuck with me, blondie."

She let out a cough, a single thread of red saliva running from her mouth and looked up at Pine.

"Your parents. They didn't hug you enough when you were a child, did they?"

He stood up, impassive, not letting her goading get to him. He glanced at the two men behind her.

"Put her down."

The hand holding her arm behind her back was removed, and without the support, Erin crumpled to the floor. She coughed violently, blood pooling in her mouth.

"I'll come back when you're ready to talk," Pine said coolly, gesturing to the men behind her. They left the room silently, followed by Pine until only her and 'Optimus Prime' were left. She glanced up at him from her position on the floor and, unlike before, he looked back at her with something akin to uncomfortableness in his blue eyes. He broke the gaze, his face stony, and left the room with Pine, closing the door shut firmly behind him, leaving Erin in silence.

She stayed where she was for a few minutes, curled up inside herself, trying to ignore the deep, throbbing pain in her gut. She didn't know where Pine got his cronies from but they certainly knew how to throw a punch. After what seemed like an age, she sat up, wiping her mouth with the back of her wrist, her hand coming away red and bloody.

If they thought that she would be broken this easily, they were wrong.

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I C **ANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH PLEASE FOLLOW/LIKE/REVIEW because the more review and follows and suchlike show up on here, the more people will click on this and read it, and the more chapters i'll post so go ahead... unless, of course, you thought it was shit, in which case I apologise.**


	7. Part One: seven

**YOOOOOOOO IM BACK YO alright Erin has a shitstorm ahead of her but here we are**

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She didn't know what time it was. That was annoying her the most. In her flat, she had a clock in every room and Erin missed the steady, meditative ticking that helped her get through the day. The room she was in was deathly quiet with the only sounds being her steady breathing. She may have slept at some point but she was awake now.

Erin pushed herself up from the grimy mattress, wincing at the screamed protestations from her limbs. She lifted the hem of her shirt up and winced when she saw the mottled purple bruise that covered her entire right side. Andrew and Louis, Pine's white-coated henchman, had certainly done their job properly, her stomach still ached from the swift punch that they had dealt her and she was pretty sure that her neck had a nice new purple necklace of bruises.

She walked, or limped, to the door on the opposite side of the room. It was locked tightly of course, but Erin leant down to inspect the lock anyway. It was complicated, far too complicated for her to be able to pick, even if she _did_ have a hairpin with her. She rolled her eyes. Evidently, getting out of this shithole would be harder than she had originally thought. She took the opportunity to look around the room. There was a small toilet in the corner, that was going to come in handy, but apart from that and the flat mattress the room was bare. Nothing that she could use as a weapon. No escape plan.

She just had to hope that S.H.I.E.L.D had noticed she was missing.

* * *

"I don't understand, Sir."

Pine struggled not to roll his eyes. For a man with immense physical strength, and more kills under his belt that anybody else he knew, he was surprised that it was taking the Soldier so long to grasp the concept of what he was being asked.

"But what about my next mission?"

"This _is_ your next mission." Pine explained through gritted teeth, "We need that formula."

"Then just torture it out of her." The Soldier responded, the irritation in his voice clear, "You don't need me here for that."

Pine adjusted his position behind his desk, before reaching down into a drawer and pulling out a piece of A4 white paper. The Soldier quirked an eyebrow in confusion, but unfolded his arms and took the paper. The Colonels' office was well lit, the many windows making it easy for the Soldier to read.

He held it up, confused. It was merely a record of Erin's educational history, elementary and high school in Manchester, then College in Cambridge, and a few S.H.I.E.L.D training courses. Nothing out of the ordinary.

"Why are you showing me this?"

The Colonel smiled, holding out his hand, and the Soldier returned the paper to its original owner. Pine turned it around and pointed to a small subsection, under the heading 'Specialist Training.'

"S.H.I.E.L.D. gave her interrogation prep. You saw how she was in there before, she's not going to tell us anything unless we almost kill her trying to do it and the last thing I need is for her to die before I find out what's in the formula."

The Soldier nodded his head, crossing his arms against his chest. Though he was not an incredibly tall man at just under six feet, he cast a powerful silhouette when standing. He rolled his eyes.

"That doesn't mean that you need me here."

Pine placed the sheet back in the drawer behind his desk and folded his arms on its hard surface, glaring hard at the Soldier. It was unusual for him to answer back to a direct command and even more unusual for him to question the judgement of a superior officer.

"We're going to Stockholm that bitch."

Another confused look.

"Stockholm Syndrome. The 'good cop, bad cop' dynamic. The plan is for you to gain her trust. Show her kindness, then, when she feels comfortable around you, get the formula."

"She's smarter than to fall for that."

Pine slammed his fists on the table and the Soldier's eyes flashed upwards in surprise at the outburst. He knew that he was taking things too far: continuously pushing the Colonel, arguing against everything he said but this wasn't his style of mission. The Soldier was used to simple jobs. Go in, kill, come back, next mission. Getting somebody to trust him wasn't something he was remotely comfortable with. He didn't even trust himself.

"This is non-negotiable." The barely concealed fire in the Colonel's voice was obvious. He was pissed off. "This is what's going to happen. I'm going to go in there and beat the shit out of her and you're going to go in after me and clean up the blood."

The Soldier nodded silently resigned to Pine's decision. It seemed he didn't have a choice in this.

"You mentioned Stockholm Syndrome, Sir? What does that mean?" He hated himself for having to ask, hated the fact that he needed to speak to the Colonel at all but he needed to know.

The corner of the Colonel's mouth quirked up in a smile which didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Stockholm Syndrome is a mental phenomenon in which a captive begins to form positive feelings of empathy and understanding with a captor."

The Soldier took a step back from the desk folding his arms over his chest, his face hard. He wasn't happy with this. Things were a lot easier when 'feelings' didn't come into it.

"Couldn't you get someone else to be nice to her? I _did_ chloroform the girl in her kitchen, she doesn't have many feeling of _empathy and understanding_ with me at the moment."

Pine sighed and stood up from behind his desk and walked over to the Soldier, looking down at him with a glare that offered no room for negotiation.

"Do you want to go back under ice, Soldier?"

The tension in the room was palatable. The fingers of the metal arm clenched so tightly that they made a quiet grating sound. The Soldier was breathing heavily, looking up at Pine with burning hatred in his eyes. He didn't answer.

"That's what I thought." Replied Pine, a smug smile on his lips, "I'm off to beat the crap out of our English friend. Get ready to act compassionately." And with that he walked out of the room, closing the door behind him and leaving the shorter man stood still, breathing heavily. He wasn't happy with this, wasn't happy with this at all, but he would do anything to avoid being put under ice again.

He hated the fact that Pine had this much control of him. He felt like a fucking _dog_ constantly at the beck and call of its master. With a resigned sigh, he brought his hand up and pushed his hair back from his face, walking towards the door.

He hadn't been _nice_ in as long as he could remember. This would be difficult.

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REVIEW PLEASE I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER. What do you think about Pine's plan?


	8. Part One: eight

**I'm really sorry if you're squeamish, because this chapter is pretty bloody. Hope you enjoy, nonetheless, and please give this story a vote or a comment if you're liking it x (Attached with this chapter is a photo of Jon Bernthal i.e. what Colonel Pine looks like). Also, don't worry if you're getting a tad bored of all the constant torture scenes (I'm nothing if not a sadist to my characters) because things are going to start getting INTERESTING soon) x**

* * *

"Have you reconsidered the topic of our conversation yesterday?"

Erin closed her eyes, sighing inwardly to herself. She was lying on her back on the single mattress, her hands folded on top of her stomach. She still ached slightly from the beating that she had received beforehand, and wasn't looking forwards to it being repeated. She groggily opened her eyes and turned her head to the side, squinting at the tall form of Colonel Pine which swaggered through the door. He closed it quietly behind him. So he didn't have his henchmen with him today. That was good.

Hopefully.

Erin sighed dramatically, pushing herself up from the mattress to look at him with disdain. Her eyes wandered to his left hand, from which hung a rickety looking chair and in his right hand he was grasping a large bundle of rope.

Maybe this wasn't going to be as easy as she had expected.

"No." She answered his original question, groaning slightly as she stood up, her limbs protesting at the movement, "Take That are a fantastic band. You should really see them in concert. It would probably change your perspective."

She had a smug sense of satisfaction at the fact that the Colonel's eyes rolled slightly in annoyance at her response but it disappeared pretty quickly as he slammed the wooden chair down on the floor and strode towards her, a malicious glint in his eyes. She took a step backwards, automatically bringing her hands up in front of her in a guard stance. Two years of JuJitsu classes when she was eight probably wouldn't help her now but she may as well give it a try.

Pine's lip quirked into a grimace of a smile, the scar on his face seeming to move independently to the rest of his skin. He was bigger than Erin. Much bigger and at least twice her weight. It was impossible for her to overpower him and he knew it. He grabbed her left arm, his large hand easily encircling her bicep, and she tried to yank it backwards but to no avail. Erin brought her leg up with the intention of kicking him in the stomach but Pine stepped forwards, effectively trapping it in between their bodies. With his left hand ,he grabbed both of her wrists and with his right hand he took hold of her hair, pulling it back harshly, almost tugging the follicles from their sockets. He led her to the chair despite her protestations and foul language and thrust her down on it with such brute strength that the legs creaked in protest. She tried to get up but he made fast work of tying her ankles to the legs of the chair, before walking around and tying her arms uncomfortably behind her.

Erin began to panic. She had managed to stay relatively calm during the initial part of her interrogation but this was different. She was unable to move, her entirety left at Pine's disposal. A small part of the back of her brain whispered that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to give him what he wanted. Surely, if she told him the formula for M.F.C.T.S, this would all be over? She shook her head imperceptibly. No. Her formula was invented to help _protect_ people and she had no doubts in her mind that if it got into Pine's hands, that would be the opposite of what would happen.

He finished tying her wrists together, the rope digging into the sensitive skin there but Erin kept a straight face as he walked back around to the front of the chair and bent down, his face inches from hers.

"You know what I want, Erin."

He smelt of spearmint. Someone, thankfully, brushed their teeth this morning. Erin looked upwards, refusing to make eye contact with him. He placed one of his hands on her shoulder, the warmth from him seeping in through her pink shirt to her freezing skin.

"Get your fucking hands off me." Her voice was ice. Pine took a step back seemingly surprised at her outburst.

"You could make this very easy for yourself if you just tell me what I want to know."

Erin took a deep breath. He was right, she could easily give them the formula and be out and on the next plane back to Washington in no time, but she wasn't going to abandon her morals for the prospect of being comfortable.

"I've told you already." She said regretting the words almost instantly as they came out of her mouth, "Take That is underrated. If you'd just give them a chance-"

A rough palm slapped across her face and Erin's head whipped sideways, cutting off the tail end of her sentence. Alright, so Colonel Pine didn't appreciate sarcasm. Erin tasted blood, she must have bitten through her lip.

"Ugggh," She groaned as she sat back up, her vision hazy. Pine wasn't even out of breath as he stood above her, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. Erin struggled to focus her gaze on him, she was seeing double after the brute force she had been hit with.

"What is in M.F.C.T.S?" The question was blunt, with no room for interpretation. Erin brought her head backwards, looking directly at Pine's face. With the largest amount of effort she could muster, she gobbed a mouthful of spit directly at his face. Most of it missed, but one globule managed to land on his chin, and she felt an immense sense of satisfaction at the shocked look on his face. Silently, Pine removed a small handkerchief from his inside pocket and wiped the spittle off his face, the look of distaste in his expression obvious. He removed his jacket leaving him in just a tight-fitted shirt. Erin couldn't help but stare. He was incredibly well built, not an ounce of fat on his huge body. Her heart dropped to her toes. There was no way in hell she would ever be able to overpower him. He silently removed a small object from the pocket of his jacket before dropping it carelessly onto the floor. It glinted slightly under the fluorescent lighting.

A butterfly knife.

Erin's blood turned to ice.

Pine noticed her terrified expression and the corner of his mouth lifted in a smug grimace. He was finally getting the reaction that he wanted from her. He held the knife up threateningly, admiring it in the light. His gaze snapped back to Erin.

"You sure you don't want to tell me about that formula?"

Her answer was instant, "Go fuck yourself."

Pine shrugged, bringing the knife up again.

"Your choice."

* * *

It was over an hour before Pine returned to his office. The Soldier was still there, leaning against his desk with his arms folded across his chest. He stood up straight when the Colonel returned, his eyebrows raised slightly in shock. The sleeves of the taller man's white shirt were rolled up to his elbows, showing off the impressive muscles of his forearm, but the Soldier wasn't even sure if his shirt _could_ be called white anymore. The cotton was splattered with dark red blotches of what could only be blood. The thick red liquid ran down one of Pine's forearms, whilst his other hand held his jacket. The Soldier took a deep breath inwards. By the looks of this, the girl was in a pretty bad state.

"She's all ready for you," Pine said, throwing his jacket on his desk and winking at the Soldier. He nodded silently before walking out of the room, feeling slightly sick.

He wasn't an easy man to make sick. He had seen too much blood in his life for it to have any effect on him. No, what had made the bile rise in the back of his throat was the smug expression on the Colonel's face. As if he had enjoyed his work. Taken _pleasure_ from the torture of another human being. The Soldier had killed in cold blood more times than he could count but he had hated every second of it. For somebody to be able to do something like that to a person and feel _proud_ of it.

That took a special kind of evil.

He stopped outside Holding Cell 435, the room in which Erin Jefferson was being kept, and leant with his back on the door breathing heavily. By the looks of Pine, he wouldn't be faced with a pretty sight when he went in there. Being _'compassionate'_ wasn't one of his strong points and he wasn't sure how he would be able to act towards the girl.

On a small table next to the door lay a thin blanket and a bowl of water with a cotton towel. The Soldier rolled his eyes. It looked like Pine had thought of everything. He grabbed the bowl with his metal hand, leaving the blanket on the table, no need for overkill, before pressing his human hand on the fingerprint scanner on the door. It swung open almost instantly and he walked into the room.

It was a state. Erin sat, her arms tied behind her, chin tucked into her chest, on a small wooden chair in the middle of the room. Her pale legs were covered in an artwork of purple bruises and red cuts and the Soldier couldn't help but wince in distaste at the sight. This was messy work.

He sighed to himself and walked over to her, placing the bowl on the floor. This was a pointless exercise. She was out cold; she wouldn't even know that it was _him_ cleaning her wounds, let alone feel _empathy_. He pushed her head back gently with his metal hand, taking a closer look at her face. There was a thin cut that ran from her hairline to her cheek, the blood matted in her hair, and one corner of her lower lip was split open, a small trickle of blood running from it, but apart from that the skin seemed relatively clear.

He let go of her head and pulled out a small knife from his back pocket, walking around to the back of the chair and cutting her arms free, where they hung limply by her sides. Pushing his long hair back from his face, the Soldier returned to his original position, kneeling down in front of her. He begun on her legs, wiping the small droplets of blood from the cuts. They were deep, he noticed as he cleaned them. Pine hadn't gone easy on her.

It was a strange sensation for him, her bare leg under his fingers. It had been so long since he had felt the warmth of another person's skin, even longer since he had felt that of a woman. He shook the thought from his head.

A mission. She was his mission.

He rinsed the cloth in the bowl, the water being such a deep red it was practically brown, and lifted it out again, wringing it in his hands.

"Pointless fucking mission, anyway." He muttered to himself as he lifted her head up once more and begun to dab gently at the gash on her forehead.

"Language." The word was muttered out of her lips so quietly that he couldn't be sure if he heard anything at all. It was only when her impossibly brown eyes fluttered open that he realised that she was awake. He froze, his hand still at her temple, his face inches from hers. Her eyelids drooped slightly and her brows quirked in confusion as she took him in. She wasn't expecting him to be there. He didn't blame her.

"I d-" She tried to speak, but instead her small body was wracked with a series of coughs. The Soldier moved backwards, shocked, as her torso shook with it. She breathed heavily, and looked up at him, a spot of red blood on her lip where he was sure it hadn't been before.

"I don't suppose you've got any of that chloroform left?" She continued, a small grin at the corner of her mouth, "I could do with a bit of it right now."

The Soldier shook his head in disbelief. Pine had beaten her almost to death, and she thought that now was a good time to start telling jokes?

"Unbelievable..." He muttered to himself, as he rinsed the cloth once again, and continued to work on the cut on her forehead, cleaning the blood out of her hair, refusing to meet her eyes. He _hated_ Pine for this. He would have easily preferred a more simple mission. Go out and kill somebody and be home in time for 'bed'. Not that he actually _slept_ .

A small snort came from Erin and he ignored it, working intently on getting a large clump of blood untangled from the mass of dark blonde hair that sat on the top of her head.

"Who did you piss off to end up getting this job?" She muttered and he rolled his eyes and sat back on his haunches. Even when kneeling down his head was still slightly above hers and he looked down at her, his face expressionless.

"I wish I knew."

With that, he took his knife and cut the thick ropes binding her feet to the legs of the chair and stood up, bowl and cloth in hand. Not speaking a word, he walked to the door. Pine could get somebody else to do this, somebody who could string a sentence together without sounding like he wanted to kill somebody.

"Patched up by Optimus Prime," muttered Erin, "My week is just getting weirder and weirder."

He recognised that name. She had called him by it before, the first time that he had arrived. He turned around, his face curious.

"What does that mean?" He asked.

Her eyebrows raised, she seemed surprised that he had even spoken to her, let alone asked her a direct question.

"He was a character in a television programme," she explained, "'Transformers'. He was a metal man..."

Her voice trailed off, and she glanced pointedly at his arm, which tensed under her gaze. He turned around and unlocked the door with his fingerprint, closing it behind him without saying another word. Placing the bowl, filled with the dark mixture of blood and water, onto the table beside him, he leant with his back against the door and breathed heavily.

This was going to be harder than he thought.

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OOOH HECK ARIGHT sorry for the intensity of that. Hope that you enjoyed anyway. Please reveiw and vote xx


	9. Part One: nine

**I'm afraid Bucko doesn't make an appearance in this chapter. It's time to learn more about Erin and Bruce's relationships (becasue I'm nothing if not an EVIL WITCH who makes people wait for romance)**

 **Also, shout out to Ruth, my beta, who makes sure that I don't get trigger-happy and put seven commas in each sentence (I am a sucker for commas)**

* * *

 _SIX MONTHS EARLIER_

There was a new girl in the lab.

Bruce noticed her almost immediately. As in, he noticed her as soon as he walked through the creaky double doors. She was sat on her own, her table-top covered in so much paper that he couldn't even see the mahogany wood underneath it, and she was writing furiously. Her hair was piled into an unruly bun on top of her head with strands falling out all over. It was unusual for S.H.I.E.L.D. to get new science workers but he know that they only hired the very best - not to blow his own horn or anything.

It was realtively late at night so Bruce was surprised to see anybody there. Usually as soon as office hours were over, everybody clocked out and went home. Only those in the middle of an experiment would stay past that time. By the looks of the girl, buried in her strewn paperwork, that was exactly what was going on.

Bruce took a seat on a table near her, opening his briefcase and getting out his work. She didn't look up, so engrossed was she in her work, and Bruce was left to wonder if she even heard him enter at all. With a resigned sigh he opened up his laptop and begun to type furiously. The tesseract was mostly untraceable but it let off tiny amounts of gamma radiation and hopefully, using that, Bruce would be able to find it.

And if he found the tesseract, he would find Loki.

There was a slight chill in the room. Someone, maybe even this new scientist, had put the AC on and Bruce couldn't help but shiver, he'd left his jacket somewhere and his thin white shirt wasn't doing much to protect him from the frigid air. He lifted his glance to the girl opposite him and smiled slightly when he noticed that she had _definitely_ dressed for the cold. She was bundled up in a thick jumper, with a gaudy orange scarf wrapped tightly around her neck. So maybe she did turn on the AC then. She felt Bruce looking at her and raised her eyes to his.

"Hey," Banner smiled at her, raising a hand in way of a wave.

Her eyebrows raised in shock slightly and Bruce winced. His fame had apparently travelled further than he had thought, if the new girl already knew who he was. He lifted up both palms in a surrender-pose.

"Don't worry. I'm not about to hulk out on you."

The girl rolled her eyes and smiled, a flash of straight white teeth.

"Good to know," she quipped back, placing her pen down on the mound of papers on her desk, "Well I'll try not to piss you off with any of my shit."

Banner chuckled, surprised by her comment. It was unusual for people to feel easy around him, what with the constant fear of him morphing into a giant green thing all the time. It was even rarer for people to make jokes about it. It was refreshing.

"I feel like we should start that introduction again," He began, getting up from his chair and walking over to her desk, hand outstretched, "I'm Bruce Banner."

She stood up and shook his hand, her grip firm. Bruce liked that, the fact that she didn't seem to be tiptoeing around him as so many other people did.

"Nice to meet you, Bruce Banner. I'm Erin Jefferson."

She had a strange accent, broad and clipped. It sounded British. He gestured to the mound of papers on her desk.

"Whatcha working on there, Erin?" He asked, taking a closer look. The sheets were all filled with scrawls of chemical compounds, as well as a few surprisingly well-drawn diagrams of the human brain.

She gave a snort.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Her chair creaked as she sat back down, picking up one of the sheets of paper and studying it intently. A corner of Bruce's mouth lifted and he pulled up a chair to sit next to her, intrigued.

"Try me."

Another crack of a smile. Erin placed the sheet of paper on the desk in front of her and shuffled slightly closer to Bruce as best she could on her ticket stool, her pen in her hand. On the paper was a photocopy of a diagram of the human brain, cut in half to show the inner workings. Erin pointed to a small nodule at the base of the skull.

"This is the prefrontal cortex," she explained, "Neurobiologists call it the 'Pinocchio gland."

Bruce raised an eyebrow in confusion but Erin continued regardless.

"Theoretically, it controls a human's ability to tell the truth. Technically, it controls the ability to invent lies. This little bastard here…" she tapped the pen on the paper, "Is the reason for every lie you've ever been told."

Bruce leant back in his chair, intrigued. He was a doctor but he had only rudimentary training in neuropsychology. This was new to him.

"What I'm working on," Erin explained, putting the diagram down and shuffling through the mound of papers on her desk, eventually pulling out one that contained a complicated looking chemical formula on it, "Is a synthetic neuroreceptor that could block the synapse."

Bruce let out a huff of air.

"It's been a while since I looked at a brain, remind me what that means?"

Erin smiled and put the paper down, looking at Bruce. Her eyes were _intense_ , such a dark brown that Bruce almost couldn't see the pupils. They made her face striking. She looked young, he realised, barely into her twenties and he was surprised that she was so acomplished in her field.

"In layman's terms, I'm trying to block the gland."

His eyes widened in surprise.

"You're trying to make a…" he struggled for the right phrase, "A _truth-telling serum?"_

Erin let out a short bark of laughter at his explanation.

"Yeah. I guess. It's only theoretical, mind you. I've not tried it out in practice...yet." She admitted and Bruce gave her a smile.

"From what you've got here," he gestured to the papers, "It looks pretty legit." He laughed, "You know, most new ChemEngineers try to come up with something like a lightweight bulletproof vest. Or a fireproof spray. You've gone full James Bond here, Jefferson."

Her curly blonde hair bounced as she nodded her head in agreement, looking at Bruce with a smirk.

"Dream big, right?"

He raised his eyebrows in amusement. He was beginning to like this girl. It was rare for Bruce to feel comfortbale around somebody. Ever since the gamma incident there had always been a part of his mind that had remained wary around other people. It wasn't in his nature to hurt people but when the Other Guy made an appearance...well... things happen. There was something about Erin's easygoing laugh and friendly eyes that made him feel slightly more at ease with himself and he liked it.

It had been a while since he had had a friend.

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 **REVIEW PLEASE and bucky will be back in thext chapter dont u worry**


	10. Part One: ten

You have my full permission to hate me because I promised you Bucky in this chapter and unfortunately will not deliver. He will DEFFO make an appearance next Chapter, though.

Also, if you're struggling to mentally picture Goodwinson, I think of him as looking a bit like Jake Abel (i.e. Adam from Supernatural). Also, I know that there's a bit of unsureness of what colour eyes bucko has, I originally wrote this story saying that they were green but have changed it to blue, so if you spot that I've said they're green, hit me up and ill change it x

Alrighty on we go.

* * *

After what seemed like an age, but was more likely just a few hours, Erin managed to finally drag herself from the wooden chair and limp back to the small mattress, collapsing onto it in a heap. The floor, at first a dull white, was now stained red from her last run-in with Pine. She, on the other hand, was surprisingly clean. Her legs were covered in deep gouges but were surprisingly blood-free.

She remembered vaguely a pair of bright blue eyes set in a dark, handsome face but apart from that everything had turned into a blur of colours. For all she knew, she could have hallucinated them.

No. On second thought there was something very definite about that shade of blue which was stuck in the back of her head. Erin didn't think that she could make that vivid colour up.

Once finally sat in the least uncomfortable position she could find, she got to examine her legs. They were a mess. She winced mentally as she remembered how her 'interview' had gone with Colonel Pine. The man was a sadist, pure and simple. He had seemed to enjoy mauling her skin like she was a piece of meat in a butchers. At one point, before she had fallen unconscious and he had got bored and left, the man had taken out a small knife, about an inch in length, and stuck the entire thing into her left thigh, thankfully avoiding any main arteries. She looked at the scar now, crusted over with the viscous brown of drying blood, and sighed to herself.

This wasn't going to be as easy as she had expected it to be.

Lying back down, grunting slightly at the pain, Erin placed her hands over her stomach and wondered to herself if S.H.I.E.L.D had even noticed that she was missing. There were hundreds of science workers at the Washington Branch, it made sense to think that she hadn't been rescued in a daring mission yet.

Maybe she never would be.

She shook the thought from her head instantly. She was _not_ going to start losing faith now. Bruce would surely notice she wasn't there, he saw her almost every day.

The thought comforted her a small bit. Maybe she wouldn't die here in this hell-hole after all.

Erin didn't know how long she spent there, lying on her back staring at the ceiling but after some time she was interrupted by the squeaky clang of the thick metal door beginning to open. Her heart dropped to her feet but she kept her eyes closed. The small fearful section of herself thought that if she ignored them, they would go away. She must be dehydrated because that was just plain stupid, the logical part of her brain supplied in a tone which sounded oddly like Bruce.

The door closed with a bang and Erin groaned, pulling her eyes open. It looked like the fun was about to begin again.

"You guys aren't the biggest fans of refractory periods are you?"

She turned her head to the side and was surprised to see that it wasn't Colonel Pine who was standing awkwardly at the door with his hands clasped tightly in front of himself, but was instead a skinny tall boy with his blonde hair scraped behind his ears.

Private Goodwinson.

Erin's eyes widened and she shot into a sitting position, screwing up her face in pain as the sudden movement caused one of the deeper scars on her leg to re-open, the burning sensation beginning to return.

"You little-" she began, and Private Goodwinson, held up his hands in surrender, not happy with the confrontation.

"Listen. I'm sorry-"

" _SORRY?!_ " Erin yelled, somehow seeming to exude more power than Goodwinson, despite the fact that she was sat on a blood-covered mattress and he was stood up to his full height. He winced at her incredulous tone.

"You're _sorry?!_ If standing up right now wouldn't cause me to lose consciousness I would come over there and punch you in the fucking nose!"

He rolled his eyes at her comment and walked towards her slowly as if approaching a wounded animal.

"Fucking traitor," Erin spat out but he continued nonetheless, walking up to the wooden chair, the blood on it now long dried, and taking a seat on it before crossing his legs over each other. He looked so _young_ , Erin thought, barely out of his teens. It wasn't fair that he had been brought into this life, a life of blood and torture and secrets and espionage.

"Tell them what they want to know, Erin." His voice was surprisingly soft.

She rolled her eyes at him.

"And what? Have one of the most powerful formulas in the world at the hands of a guy who takes his pleasure in turning somebody into a human voodoo doll?" She gestured to the patchwork of cuts and stab wounds on her bare legs. One of the scabs had opened, and was oozing red fluid.

Goodwinson averted his eyes, unable to look at them.

"Please, Erin."

For once, Erin didn't have a sarcastic quip. The tone of Goodwinson's voice was something that she had never heard before. He was _begging_ her. He was _desperate_.

"They're never going to stop, you know. You don't deserve this." He continued. His eyes found hers, blue on brown, and she could see his supposed sincerity.

"You're bloody right I don't" She replied, more of a mutter. Why did James Goodwinson suddenly care so much about her well-being? He was the one who caused her to be brought in here in the first place.

"Erin. You'll die here."

"Why the fuck do you care, James?"

His reaction was instant. At the sound of his first name, his eyes snapped up in shock, wide and blue. His whole body language was tense, his scrunched shoulders and the way that his thumb was tapping quickly on his thigh.

"I can't help but feel responsible-"

"You _are_ responsible-"

"I don't want you to get hurt, Erin."

She stopped, shocked. James' face was red, the blush highlighting his cheekbones, his eyes were looking everywhere but at Erin.

"And I don't want to see you die here." he continued.

Well. That was unexpected.

She pushed herself up from her sitting position, wincing and muttering out a low curse at the pain. James stood up in shock.

"No. No don't move. You'll hurt yourself..." He moved forwards to catch her slightly as she stumbled, his hands grabbing hold of her upper arms. His skin was warm in comparison to hers.

"It's a bit fucking late for that."

He let out a small chuckle at that, and Erin felt the corner of her mouth lift up into a smile. Despite the fact that he was a traitor and a mole, he had worked with her at S.H.I.E.L.D. The familiarity was nice. He half-helped half-carried her to the chair, where he sat her down, and kneeled down in front of her. He wasn't unattractive, she noticed. He had a nice face. Friendly.

"Tell them what they want, Erin. Please."

He was flat out begging her now.

"You know I can't do that," she replied in earnest, still slightly in shock from what was happening, "How many people are going to get hurt if Pine can make anyone tell the truth?"

He broke eye contact with her, looking down at his hands, which he was anxiously wringing together. He knew that she was right. Standing up, Goodwinson placed a hand on Erin's shoulder, and unlike she had with Pine, she didn't shake him off. Instead, she looked up at him, still confused, still slightly dazed.

"I need to go," He said, looking at his watch, "They only sent me in here to check you were still breathing..."

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. Everything that was happening right now was _too much,_ and maybe if she'd had a good night's sleep and enough to eat, she would be able to understand it. As she was, dehydrated, and down roughly a pint of blood, her sluggish mind was taking longer than usual to catch up.

"Well that was nice of them..."

He shook his head at her, and muttered, "Be careful, Jefferson," before removing his hand and walking around her to the door. Erin heard the distinct metal clang of it opening and closing, and was once again left on her own in the silence of the room.

What in the fuck had just happened? Was she hallucinating again?

It made no sense, she had only spoken to the guy on one or two occasions, certainly not enough for him to have developed any feelings towards her, yet what she had seen in his eyes, the desperation. He couldn't have faked that.

She let out a long breath that she didn't know she'd been holding in.

"Shitting hell, Jefferson. What have you gotten yourself into?"

* * *

OKAY please review because I want to know what you guys thought of that chapter WTF IS GOING ON? Nobody knows! I don't even know and I'm fucking writing this thing!

Bucky will appear next chapter (with muchos heroics) I promise x


	11. Part One: eleven

**Guess who's back? Bucky, that conflicted, adorable, heart-broken man. Also, watch out for the second half of this chapter, which is pretty violent. As always, enjoy xx**

* * *

There had been a camera installed in interrogation room 435 prior to Jefferson's admission. According to Pine, it would be easier to 'keep tabs on her'. Despite that, he had still found it necessary to send one of the younger Privates in - just to check that she was still alive. For some reason, the thought of another person in her room irritated the Soldier.

He was sat in Pine's office, looking intently at the small fuzzy image from the camera on the computer screen. Erin was lying on her back on the filthy mattress that somebody had thought it wise to place in the corner of the room. She wasn't moving and he could only just make out the rise and fall of her chest, the sign of life that Pine needed.

Private Goodwinson entered silently and the Soldier almost rolled his eyes as the younger man stood awkwardly by the door, wringing his hands together in front of him. He didn't know why Pine hadn't sent one of the bigger guys in, because by the look of this kid Jefferson would beat the shit out of him, even in her pain-induced coma.

Colonel Pine had a confusing relationship with Private Goodwinson. It was almost as if the younger man was constantly trying to prove himself to the Colonel, first getting the intelligence on Erin and now this? Volunteering to check that she was still alive when the guy looked like a steady wind would probably knock him over? Suspicious.

Erin noticed him immediately and sat up quickly. The Solider winced mentally to himself, that would have hurt considering that the scars on her legs wouldn't have healed yet. Even through the densely pixelated screen he could tell that she was pissed off. Goodwinson continued to talk to her, his body language desperate. What was he _doing?_ He was only supposed to check the damn girl was still alive, this was no time for a chat. Not for the first time the Soldier wished that the cameras were equipped with microphones.

The blurry image of Goodwinson walked over to the girl and she attempted to stand up, but nearly fell, causing Goodwinson to grab her upper arms and basically carry her to the chair in the centre of the room. He was surprisingly strong for someone who looked like they weighed thirty pounds.

The Private kneeled in front of Erin on the chair and the Soldier folded his arms before leaning back in his chair. This was definitely not part of protocol. James Goodwinson wasn't starting to get a crush, was he? That could endanger the whole mission...

The Soldier slammed the laptop lip closed and stood up, his legs aching from so long sat down. He was going to need to have a little chat with Private Goodwinson. Developing emotions towards a captive was a sure fire way to contaminate a mission and if he fucked this up, they would all have to pay. Also, there was a small part of the Soldier that wasn't entirely happy seeing the way that James had placed his hand on Erin's shoulder. The gesture was far too intimate for his liking...and completely unprofessional.

He was about to exit the door when Pine burst through it, a look of steely determination on his face. The corner of his mouth raised in a grim smirk when he took in the Soldier's face.

"Just the guy I wanted to see." He said, brushing past him and making his way to his desk, opening one of the drawers behind it and pulling out a suspiciously long knife, "Turns out our friend isn't dead yet."

He held up the knife, looking over the recently cleaned and polished blade with a practised eye.

"Time to make her wish she was."

He set off again for the door but before he knew what had happened, the Soldier had placed his metal arm out in front of him, preventing the Colonel from leaving the room, effectively barricading the door. The larger man looked down at the Soldier with an expression of confusion on his face.

"What is the meaning of this?"

The Soldier lowered his arm silently, his blue eyes boring into Pine's. His jaw twitched.

"She may not be dead yet, but that doesn't mean that another round won't kill her off." He gestured to the knife, "She's not in any circumstance to lose any more blood. She's already about a pint down."

Pine's eyebrow twitched in irritation but the rest of his face remained stoic. He was shocked. The Soldier never answered back; he did what he was told, without question.

Pine breathed out loudly through his nose.

"What makes you a doctor all of a sudden?"

The two men were so close now that they were almost touching, electricity sparking between them. The Soldier hated the fact that he had to strain his neck to look into the eyes of the taller man.

"I know how to kill people, Pine. And I know how to keep them alive. If you drain any more blood from that girl you won't get your formula." he answered

Pine seemed to deliberate for a second before letting out an irritated sigh and stalking back to his desk, throwing the knife point down into the wooden surface, annoyed.

"Well we'll have to find a different way to make her want to talk."

The Soldier had to fight the compulsion to roll his eyes. Pine had given the girl maybe eight hours break. Certainly not enough for her to recover. Pine walked back to the door but stopped just before exiting it, turning to face the soldier. His expression was ice.

"One last thing." He muttered, looking down at the smaller man with barely disguised contempt, "If you ever speak to me like that again, I'll make sure you're put under ice for the rest of your miserable life."

The Soldier remained silent, his face stony. He clenched his fist by his side, hearing the quiet creak of metal rubbing against metal. He had never wanted to strangle a man more than he did at this moment but knew that he couldn't. If he laid even one finger on Colonel Pine, he would be submerged again - perhaps indefinitely.

There was nothing worse than being under the ice. The cold that never seemed to leave his bones, even when he was defrosted. The disorientation, the sense that he was never really _himself._

 _"Do you understand me?"_

The Soldier clenched his fist slightly tighter, his whole body tense.

"Yes." He almost spat the word out, Pine raised an eyebrow.

"Yes what?"

The Soldier's heart was nearly beating out of his chest, the adrenaline running through his body. Surely it wouldn't be too hard to lift up his metal hand and close it around that thick neck... see the light die from those glinting eyes?

 _"_ Yes... _Sir."_ He put as much venom in his voice as he could but it didn't faze Pine, who merely smiled and nodded, before turning on his heel and leaving the room, closing the door behind himself.

The Soldier pushed his hair back from his face and sighed. He didn't know what was wrong with himself - he never disagreed with direct orders, let alone almost getting into a fight with a superior officer. Shaking his metal hand, which was beginning to stiffen, he walked back over to Pine's desk and opened up the laptop, being careful to avoid the knife that had been carelessly lodged into the desk. He logged into the computer with Pine's password and watched the screen intently. Erin was still slouched on the chair where James had left her, her head tucked into her chest. The camera was blurry, but the Soldier could easily see that her pale legs were still covered in the blotches of scar tissue from her earlier run-in with Pine.

He waited for roughly five minutes before there was any movement on the screen, but eventually, he saw the door open, and Pine and two other men walked in.

* * *

She heard the sound of the door opening but didn't have the energy to lift her head. Perhaps it was James, returning to continue pleading with her to give up the information. Or maybe it was the mysterious man with the blue eyes who had been plaguing her memories.

The door closed with a metallic bang and she raised her eyed. Before spitting out a low curse. It wasn't James and it wasn't Optimus Prime, the man with the metal arm. It was the brooding figure of Colonel Pine, flanked by the two men in white coats that she had met during her first 'interrogation'.

"You brought Tweedledum and Tweedledee." She muttered, almost to herself. She heard a snort of amusement from Pine and suddenly she was pulled out of the chair, one man on either side of her, holding her under her arms. She brought her eyes up to Pine. Even whilst she was being held up, her feet dangling a few inches above the floor, the height difference was massive.

"Have you ever considered investing in, like, a stress ball or something?" She asked, taking a small amount of pleasure from the fact that she saw his jaw twitch in irritation, "You know, just to get the anger out in a slightly different way..."

"You don't know when to shut your fucking mouth, do you?"

She lifted one of her eyebrows, "I won't deny that..."

Pine nodded at one of the men holding Erin and she found her left arm twisted up behind her back, painfully jarring her ribs in the process. Pine walked up to her, lifting her chin up by firmly grasping it in his thumb and forefinger and forced her to look into his eyes.

"Tell me what's in M.F.C.T.S"

"Go fuck a cactus."

She heard a small snort near her left ear, which she assumed came from one of the men holding her in place. A sharp look from Pine shut him up and the taller man smiled slightly and took a step back, before bringing his fist back and burying it deep into Erin's stomach. The pain exploding from her sternum left her breathless and she let out a good lungful of much-needed air, doubling over as much as she could with 'Tweedledum' and 'Tweedledee' holding her in place. Pine grabbed a fistful of her hair and dragged her head up so he could look at her.

"You can't lose any more blood. That's what they tell me. But that doesn't mean that we're not able to have a bit of fun."

"Your definition of 'fun' needs some work."

Another fist, this one to her face. She felt a crack in her jaw and warm sticky blood poured into her mouth, dribbling down her chin.

"I feel sorry for your wife."

A slap this time, directly across the face. She went limp, her body flopping in the arms of the two men in white coats. She hurt everywhere, all over. Erin had never been good at knowing when to shut up and this was obviously one of those times. She spat, red saliva hitting the white linoleum flooring that just added to the high-budget horror film aesthetic Pine had going on in her holding cell.

"What's in M.F.C.T.S?" he repeated, pulling her head up by her chin to look at him.

She let out something that was slightly more of a groan than a legible sentence and Pine smiled. Her vision was blurring. The Colonel brought his face in close to hers, bending down to look directly in her eyes. His breath smelt of spearmint.

"You're going to tell me. Maybe not now, but you will. Eventually."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Or what?"

"Or you'll die here."

His face moved back and another fist came, hitting her temple.

Everything went black.

* * *

OOOOH There we go. Another torture scene. And we all know what happens next... Aftercare ft, Bucky Barnes, so keep yer eyes peeled, and as always, please vote and review x


	12. Part One: twelve

**Alrighty I'm back with another chapter. (daaaaaamn daniel... back at it again with the angsty chapters)**

 **Please let me know if Erin is getting anywhere close to a Mary Sue, because that aint what I'm going for. There will be a scene change soon if youre getting bored of all the CONSTANT TORTURE.**

 **As always, please vote and review (also, if any of you are following this story on Wattpad, a piece of artwork of Bucky and Erin has been made for this story, and I posted it with this chapter, so plase go and have a look x)**

* * *

The Soldier wasn't surprised to see Erin lying motionless on the cold white floor when he walked into the room. He rolled his eyes hard enough that he thought they'd start to hurt. Pine was nothing if not thorough. Closing the door quietly behind him, he gingerly walked up to her, trying not to make too much noise. The girl had barely slept a wink in the three days that she had been here, he might as well let her get some shut-eye whilst she could.

He grimaced to himself as he took in the state of her face. There was an ugly bruise that ran the whole way down her left cheek, purpling slightly. He crouched down and put his arms on his knees, trying to take a better look. Pine had really done his best work yet. He had watched what had unfolded here hours prior on Pine's office computer. It hadn't been pretty, and that's coming from a professional assassin. He had brought Andrew and Tobias, two of his more sycophantic cronies, to help him this time. He hadn't even needed them.

The scars on her legs were still red-raw, rusty brown scabs beginning to form over them. It would take a while before they healed. Knowing Pine, he would probably open them up again before long. The Soldiers eyes roamed over her sleeping face, his eyebrows knotting. She was so _small,_ barely five foot two, and little over 120 pounds soaking wet and yet here she was, resisting a brutal torture by one of the most sadistic men that the Soldier had ever met. He had to hand it to her, the girl had balls.

That, or she was just incredibly stupid. But then again bravery and stupidity tend to be synonymous.

He shuffled slightly closer, examining her almost clinically, his face inches from hers. She was young, her face not yet marked by wrinkles and her hair was a dark blonde, almost the colour of honey. Well... the bits of her hair that weren't matted with blood, at least. He sighed to himself and slowly lifted her up, trying not to jar her too much. His job was to be supportive to her, he might as well try. Hopefully, she'd tell him the formula soon and he could get back to doing what he was good at.

Carrying her bridal-style, he walked over to the dingy mattress and placed her down. She emitted a pissed-off sounding grunt and the Soldier barely concealed a sigh of annoyance. So much for his plan of 'wipe off the blood and go'.

Her eyes fluttered open and she looked up at him, confused.

"Ah. You again."

He raised an eyebrow but didn't reply, instead silently walking out of the room and returning carrying a large bowl of water and a cloth. Erin's eyes widened in surprise.

"Aftercare? I don't know what they taught you guys in torture-school but I don't think you're supposed to be nice to the person after you've finished bashing their face in."

The Soldier stayed silent, closing the door with his hip and walking back over to the mattress and placing the bowl on the floor. He wet the cloth and brought it up to Erin's forehead, where a new gash was bleeding. She raised her hand and slapped the Soldier's arm away.

"Just let me do my fucking job." He muttered angrily.

"He speaks?!" She said in mock surprise at his outburst and he rolled his eyes. Not for the first time, he mentally cursed Pine for giving him this job. Just a simple assassination, that was all he wanted and instead he had been saddled with babysitting a foul-mouthed and cranky BioChemist.

Erin picked the cloth up off the floor and washed it in the water, bringing it up to her own forehead and dabbing at the cut there. She winced slightly, but otherwise made no noise.

"Is it true what Pine said?"

The question caught the Soldier off-guard, he had been expecting her to talk, maybe to try to annoy him, but not to ask about Pine. He was so shocked that he answered her immediately.

"What did he say?"

She dipped the cloth back in the water, the blood leeching into the clear liquid and brought it back up to her forehead, still dabbing at the pink cut there.

"That you didn't have a name. Is that true?"

She placed the cloth back in the bowl and sat up, crossing her legs in front of her, looking directly at the Soldier with those impossibly brown eyes. He found her gaze almost too intense and found himself looking downwards, not saying a word.

"How is that possible? How can someone not have a name?"

He stayed silent, instead picking up the bowl and cloth and walking out of the room, before coming back in with a thin blanket.

"If you don't answer me I'm just going to keep calling you Optimus Prime in my head and I think that's worse, to be honest."

Optimus Prime. The metal man. For some reason, that riled the soldier. The fact that, in her head, she referred to him as someone who wasn't even human. He sighed, wringing the blanket in his hands. He walked over to her, intending to crouch in front of her again, but somehow he ending up sat next to her on the dingy mattress, his legs stretched out in front of him, his back resting on the wall behind him. The shitty blanket, more a thin sheet than anything to keep somebody warm, was still clutched in his hands.

"I can't remember."

His voice was low, throaty after so many months unused. It sounded almost emotional and that vexed him. He turned his head and was surprised to see that instead of laughing at him, Erin was looking at him with confusion.

"You don't remember your name?"

He didn't answer, looking away from her and forwards, his gaze glassy. He didn't understand why he was talking to this girl, why he was telling her all of this. The Soldier was only good at two things, killing and keeping secrets and it looked as if he may have to check one of those things off his list. He told himself that this was part of his job. He was supposed to get her to trust him, and what better way than to fool her that he was beginning to open up.

"I don't remember a lot of things."

He saw her nod at that out of the corner of his peripheral vision. He made sure that he didn't lose sight of her out of the corner of his eye. Even if she looked like she couldn't fight off a guy half his size, the Soldier was still uneasy about turning his back on her, leaving himself unprotected.

"What do you remember?"

His answer was instant.

"The cold. I remember the cold."

He saw her take a wary glance at his arm. It didn't surprise him. Even Pine was wary of his arm, what it could do.

"Did they give you that?"

He didn't need to look at her to know what she was talking about.

"I've always had it... I don't... I don't know."

She was silent for a while, letting the information sink in. She believed him, he really didn't know. He couldn't remember. Erin tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear absent-mindedly.

"I wonder if..." she begun, "No..."

"What?"

The Soldier turned his head and looked at Erin. She had a strange expression on her face. Her eyebrows were wrinkled together as if she was deep in concentration. She let out a snort of laughter.

"I can't switch off. Even in the middle of a bloody torture chamber I'm still hypothesising."

" _What?"_ He asked again.

"My serum."

The Soldier sat up, interested. He'd almost forgotten for a minute what his real purpose there was. M.F.C.T.S was the only important thing to him at the moment.

"What about it?"

She sat up, and he noticed an immediate difference in her. The light that he had seen the first time that he had met her, in her kitchen, holding up a fucking plastic spatula to defend herself had returned. The fire had come back to her face.

"This is only hypothetical." She began with, and he noticed that she had raised her hands, gesturing with them excitedly, "But M.F.C.T.S blocks the receptors in the brain that make it possible to lie. I'm wondering if it works on repressed memories. If for example, you were to take it, you would be forced to tell the truth."

He raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean?"

"If the answer is in there somewhere," She gestured to his head, "If your name is in there _anywhere,_ even repressed, you wouldn't have a choice but to say it."

What she was saying made sense, the Soldier realised. She, or rather her serum, could make him remember the things that he had forgotten. He could remember his life before the arm, before the cold and the killing. He could remember how things used to be.

"Is that possible?"

"It's a theory, but... I don't know... maybe."

The difference in her was extraordinary. Where only a few minutes ago she had looked like living death, she was now full of life. The excitement of her new hypothesis radiated off her like warmth. It was contagious, and the Soldier couldn't help but feel a small part of his frozen interior thaw as he contemplated what she was saying. To remember everything, that would be a big gift.

But no. He wasn't here to remember. He was here to complete a mission, he reminded himself. Get her trust, find out the serum. Then on to the next thing.

He had a job to do.

The Soldier stood up suddenly, causing Erin to jump at the unexpected movement. He looked down at her, breathing heavily, his expression cold. He couldn't afford to get attached. That was the first rule. Don't get attached.

He threw the pathetic excuse for a blanket down at her, and she caught it with an outstretched arm, wincing slightly at the movement.

"Stay warm." he muttered.

"Wait, what the fu-"

Before she could finish her sentence, he had all but fled out of the room, shutting the door tightly behind himself and leaning his back against it, breathing heavily. This was bad. This was very very bad. He should never have told her so much about him, he shouldn't have given her that advantage over him. She was a mission. Just a mission.

The Soldier sighed to himself and pushed his hair back from his face with his metal hand.

Just a mission.

* * *

The Staff Common Area was a dingy room that somebody had had the good grace to shove a few spring-less couches into, but it served its purpose well. The Soldier didn't want to be there, he would rather remove each of his remaining fingernails than have to spend any time in the company of the skinheads that passed for soldiers, but there was no other place for him to go.

He was sat in a rickety chair, looking down at his hands, trying not to listen to the hyped-up masculine talk that was being shared between four of five Privates.

"So I had this girl, right, a blonde I'd picked up in a bar somewhere and I was nailing her against this wall..."

The Soldier screwed up his face in distaste. The last thing that he needed to hear were the sexual exploits of his co-workers, especially when described in such graphic detail. He rolled his eyes as the man, a tall bulky blonde with more muscles than IQ points, began rhythmically humping the air, much to the amusement of his fellow men.

"Hey, have you seen that new piece of ass Pine brought in for questioning?" A different man, slightly younger, with short brown hair shaved close to his head, interrupted.

The Soldier's ears pricked up at this, interested. They were talking about Erin.

A guffaw of laughter erupted from the four men at the comment, all losing interest quickly in the blonde's story.

"I wouldn't mind a piece of that." The blonde laughed, plonking himself down on one of the couches, spreading his legs widely, a stance of power. The rest of the men laughed and the brunette nodded in agreement.

"She's English, apparently."

"That's hot."

A muscle in the Soldier's jaw twitched, the only sign of movement from him.

"I wouldn't mind giving her an 'interrogation', if you know what I mean," The blonde continued, standing back up and continued his air-humping, to the laughter of his fellow soldiers.

The man hardly had time to process what happened. One minute, he was stood up, rubbing his crotch obscenely and the next second he had been flung across the back of one of the chairs in the room, landing awkwardly on his leg. He looked up in shock to see a tall brunet with eyes the colour of the sky looking at him with a face of ice.

"What the fu-" He didn't finish his sentence, as the man stepped over the overturned char and grabbed him by the lapel, lifting his body clean off the floor and throwing him again. This time, he crashed into a filing cabinet in the corner of the room, the metallic clang echoing around the small area. His friend, the shorter brunet, tried to come for the tall man but was rewarded with a stiff elbow to the ribs that made him drop like a stone. The Soldier stepped over his crumped body towards the blonde and took him by the throat, lifting his feet clean off the ground. The blonde let out a choked squeal, his hands grasping his throat, but the Soldier didn't let go. Instead his mechanical fingers clenched tightly around the man's oesophagus. He pulled his face towards the blonde's until their eyes were inches apart.

"Lay one finger on that girl and I'll rip your spine out through your mouth."

His voice was barely a whisper, but the blonde's eyes widened at the intensity of his words. With a disgusted grunt, the Soldier let go of the man's throat and he fell, clutching his neck and taking deep rasping breaths. He looked up at the taller man, eyes watering.

The room was silent. All of the remaining Privates were stood still, save the two on the floor, looking at the man in black who had single-handedly taken out two of their friends. Without saying a word, the man turned his back and walked out of the room, leaving the door open behind him.

* * *

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH THERE WE GOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Review/vote plz plz plz

Also, if anyone wants to do any art then go right ahead x


	13. Part One: thirteen

Ah, the unlucky number thirteen... but will this chapter be unlucky for Erin? You'll just have to wait and see! (Also, my apologies, but I will be posting less regularly for the next 2 months-ish, because I have my A Levels coming up and have to study for them, so sorry about that... please keep voting and commenting, though, and hopefully I'll manage to post a few xx)

There was a tiny scratching sound somewhere in Erin's room, and she silently sent up a prayer to any deity listening that it wasn't a rat. She fucking _hated_ rats. Every time she closed her eyes, she could hear a tiny rustling, and it was preventing her from sleeping.

That wasn't the only thing keeping her awake, though.

Since her unexpected chat with Optimus Prime, Erin's mind had been whirring around the possibilities of bringing his memories back with M.F.C.T.S. Theoretically there was no reason why it shouldn't work, no reason that she wouldn't be able to bring back repressed memories with the use of her serum. It was a scientific breakthrough. If only she had a pen to jot things down...

She couldn't help but wonder, though, what had happened to the Soldier to remove _all_ of his memories? Sure, a force trauma to the head could remove a few, even most of his memories, but to remember nothing at all, not even a name? That was odd. Erin wouldn't put it past HYDRA to perform unethical surgical procedures on a person; that was certainly where that monstrosity of a metal arm had come from. But to actually remove somebody's memories entirely? That took a lot of work. Hypothetically, there were some compounds that they could have given him to erase his memories, and that was a problem in her plan. If he already had chemical compounds running through his brain, it was likely that they would interfere with the M.F.C.T.S, causing unknown side-effects. She didn't hold any _liking_ for the guy, but she wasn't ready to poison him.

It was a conundrum.

She was so wound up in her own thoughts that she didn't hear the quiet creak of the door opening from the other side of the room, or the footsteps that padded towards her. It was only when a polite cough came from above her that she whipped her head up, heart thumping in her chest, shocked by the unexpected interruption.

"Goodwinson?"

That was someone she hadn't expected to see. The young man was looking around nervously, despite the entire room being empty apart from themselves and _perhaps_ an unseen rat. Erin pushed herself up from the mattress in shock, trying to stand up, but stumbling slightly. Three days without food didn't do her muscle mass much good; she felt so weak she could barely lift her body weight. Goodwinson took a step forwards and held onto her shoulders, steadying her. He was surprisingly strong for such a skinny guy.

"I have an idea." His voice was low, almost a whisper despite the fact that they were the only ones in the room.

Erin raised an eyebrow incredulously. She knew where this was going.

"If your idea is 'tell Pine what's in the serum' I have some bad news for y-"

"An idea on how to get you out of here."

She shut her mouth in shock. Had she heard right? She quirked her eyebrow, looking up at James in confusion. This didn't make any sense.

"What?"

He let out a sigh and took a step backwards from her, rubbing the light stubble on his chin with his left hand.

"I'm going to help you get out of here, Erin." His voice was slightly louder this time, slightly more confident.

She wasn't one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, but Erin couldn't help but be slightly suspicious as the sudden turn of events.

"Why?"

"I'm new at this..." he muttered, "New at HYDRA. My father worked here, and they all thought I was going to go into the 'family businesses." He air-quoted the last two words, a look of disgust on his face, "But I didn't realise that it would be like _this."_ He gestured to her bedraggled state. Erin couldn't help but understand where he was coming from, she was pretty sure that she looked like living death.

"Like in 'The Godfather?'" she asked, "Family business not all it's cracked up to be?"

He rolled his eyes and smirked a little.

"Yeah, like 'The Godfather'."

Erin folded her arms over her chest, confused at what was happening. She had known that Goodwinson wasn't comfortable with the amount of violence that Pine was inflicting, he had even gone as far as to beg her to give in and tell him the formula, but she had never imagined that he would actually try to help her out.

"How did you get in here?" She asked, confused, "Did they give you security clearance?"

Goodwinson chuckled slightly, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a small plastic card, an ID card.

"I gave myself security clearance."

Her eyebrows raised in shock as she grasped the meaning if his words. The small photo on the front of the card, a chubby bald man with a thick pair of spectacles hanging on his nose, was certainly _not_ Private James Goodwinson.

"You _swiped_ that?" She asked, surprised that the mild-mannered soldier would actually go as far as to steal another soldier's ID.

He nodded, putting the small card back in his pocket. Well, that explained why he seemed so nervous previously. HYDRA wasn't a place that allowed for disloyalty, he would be in _big_ trouble if anybody found out.

"It's from a lieutenant, hopefully I can put it back before anybody notices."

He was wringing his hands together, obviously worried. A small muscle at the base of his neck was spasming wildly.

"They change the guards at twelve midnight each night, leaving a space of about five minutes where the door to this cell remains unguarded." He explained to her, "Tomorrow night, I'll take this card again, and I'll come to get you during that window. Hopefully, they won't notice you're gone until the morning after."

Erin let out a deep breath. This was not what she had expected at all. They guy was barely out of his teens, his face still marred by small amounts of acne. He was a _kid._ She supposed that she had underestimated his audacity, because this was either very brave, or completely fucking suicidal.

"Why not tonight?" She asked, eager to escape. She had, evidently incorrectly, assumed that S.H.I.E.L.D. would have caught wind of her absence and sent in a team to get her out of there. So far, the only help that she had received was from people on the inside.

Goodwinson rolled his eyes.

"You've not eaten anything in three days, Erin. You can barely walk, let alone _run_ anywhere. I think they're going to bring you some food later on today. Get your strength up, and then we can go."

"Get my strength up?" She asked, "That's rich coming from a guy who looks like a steady east wind would send him flying."

The corner of Goodwinson's mouth lifted up in a smirk, and he rolled his eyes at her.

"Don't underestimate the little guys, we pack a punch."

She snorted out a laugh at that, but agreed with him nonetheless. She had always been one of the 'little guys'. At only five foot two, even James towered above her, and she knew what it felt like to be undervalued.

"Okay. Tomorrow night." She agreed, rubbing her hands together, trying to warm herself up. The think blanket that the Soldier with the metal arm had given her the previous night was thin and itchy. It didn't do an awful lot to keep her warm. She took a step forwards and placed a hand on Goodwinson's shoulder. He raised an eyebrow at the unexpected contact.

"Thank you, James. I don't know how I'm going to repay you for this, but I'll find a way."

The boy smiled at her use of his first name, and tilted his head to the side in way of acceptance.

"You're welcome, Erin. But I gotta go. I don't know how long it will be until this guy realises his ID card is missing."

Erin's eyes widened in realisation. He was right, and she couldn't have her way out of HYDRA getting killed before they even had a chance to attempt a jailbreak. She nodded in understanding.

"Shit, yeah, of course, go."

He nodded and lifted his hand to his shoulder, placing it on top of hers for a second. What he was doing was mad, she could see the fear in his eyes. There was a very small chance that this could work, an even smaller chance that they would both come out of it unscathed. For some reason, though, this skinny little twig of a kid was helping her to get out. He turned his back on her and walked towards the door, fetching the card once again from his pocket and scanning himself out.

He looked back at her before he left the room.

"Get some rest, Erin. You're going to need it."

* * *

It was about an hour before the door opened again. Erin sat up straight this time, thinking that Goodwinson had returned, perhaps to change his mind. But it wasn't the mild-mannered blonde who walked through the open door before shutting it quietly behind him. It was the Soldier, his metal arm glinting slightly under the fluorescent lighting. He had in his left hand a small bowl.

Erin heard her stomach audibly rumble at the sight.

"Ah, finally." She quipped, feeling her heart rate return to normal and stretching her bare legs out in front of her as she adjusted her position on the mattress, "I was wondering when the lobster would get here. Although I must say, I'm _very_ unhappy with the service. I don't think I'll be leaving a tip."

The Soldier rolled his eyes at her sarcasm, it was incredible how such a stoic face could show so much distaste, and walked towards her before handing her the bowl silently. She reached up and took it from him. It contained, not, as she had joked, lobster, but instead a porridge-like substance.

"Ah. Indeterminate grey mush. Well, that's my second favourite, so thanks."

Was that the lighting or was there a slight twitch of the corner of his top lip that betrayed an almost-smile? He turned to walk away.

"No cutlery?" She asked him, and he turned back to her, an unreadable expression on his face.

"Pine is under the impression that if I give you a fork, you'll stab me in the neck with it."

He had a strange accent. Erin couldn't say that she knew an awful lot about the different colloquialisms of American accents, but he sounded like he was from New York. She raised an eyebrow, and snorted.

"Fair enough. He's probably right."

She swirled the plastic bowl, the grim-looking substance sticking to the edges, and grimaced. It wasn't exactly fine-dining, but after three days of starvation, she was in a situation where she would eat anything. The Soldier gave her a strange look, half-turned towards the door. He seemed to be deciding if he wanted to go or stay. After a moment of deliberation, he turned to go again, walking towards the exit to the room in long strides.

"Wait-"Erin called, and he stopped, his back to her, staring at the door.

"What?" He asked, not turning around.

"I've been thinking."

She heard a snort from him, and he twisted his head around, his usually dead eyes sparkling.

"That can't be good news."

It took her by surprise. He'd made a joke. An actual _joke._ She was silent in shock for a second. It was amazing how much the cheeky glint of humour changed his face. The blank mask that she was so used to seeing lit up like a candle, animating his whole expression. It was easy to see how somebody could fall for a face like that. Not _her_ of course, but somebody.

She rolled her eyes.

"Careful, Optimus. You don't want me to have to throw my grey mush at you." She gestured to the bowl of unidentifiable liquid in her hands and he raised an eyebrow.

"God, I certainly don't." He walked towards her, pulling up the rickety wooden chair that still sat at the side of the room and sitting down on it, facing her. Erin placed the bowl on the floor and folded her legs under herself. They still ached slightly, the scars from her first encounter with Pine not yet healed. She couldn't help but notice the fact that the Soldier's eyes were trained directly on her face, almost as if he was valiantly trying to look anywhere but her bare legs.

"Okay, so I was thinking more about what we spoke about earlier," Erin admitted, picking some dirt out of underneath her fingernail. The Soldier nodded silently, leaning forwards slightly, his body language eager. He was desperate to get his memories back, that much was obvious.

"What about it?"

His voice was low, gravelly. Any form of a smile on his face had disappeared now, replaced by total seriousness.

"Do you know how you lost your memories in the first place? Like, was it a chemical compound that they gave you? Because that could fuck with the serum..." She thought she may as well get the question out bluntly. It was a touchy subject for him, she could tell by the way a muscle twitched in his sculpted jaw as soon as she spoke. He leant back, pushing his hair back from his face with his metal hand. She tried not to stare at it. She knew that it made him uncomfortable when she looked for too long at his arm.

"I..." he let out a sigh, and brought his eyes back to her. He looked tired. "Do you know much about electro-shock therapy?"

He voice cracked part-way through the sentence, and Erin sat up straighter, not believing what she was hearing. They took his memories away by... _shocking_ them out of him?

"They didn't..." She almost whispered. Electro-shock therapy had been banned in most countries. It used to be used as a treatment for schizophrenia, but often, it caused more problems than it solved. To send electrical currents through such a sensitive part of the body... that couldn't be good for him.

He raised a single eyebrow over a piercing blue eye as an answer, and she let out a loud breath that she didn't realise she had been holding in. No wonder the guy was messed up.

"Jesus, Optimus... they use that as a _torture technique_ in some countries _..."_

She could see that his shoulders were tense. He was uncomfortable talking about this. It didn't make any sense to her that he would share this information with her. He was an agent, an assassin. People like him traded in secrets, but kept their own close to her chest. The only reason that she could think of for him being so open was that he truly believed that her serum would work. He wanted his memories back so badly, he was willing to leave himself completely exposed to get them.

"Can you do it, then?" He asked her, leaning forwards, his elbows on his knees, "Can you get me to remember?"

She thought for a second, before slowly moving her head into a nod. "I... I think I might be able to."

The reaction was instantaneous. He leant back in his chair, stretching his arms behind his head, his eyes lit up. Erin couldn't help but stare. He was wearing black cargo pants and a black shirt, one of the sleeves removed to fit the metal arm that glistened threateningly. The guy was _built,_ not like Pine, who was pure muscle, but certainly not as slim as someone like Goodwinson. There was definite definition to the lean muscles that flexed under his thin shirt at the stretch. He nodded at her, and stood up silently, the chair scraping along the linoleum flooring as he pushed it back.

"Thank you." He said, the honesty dripping from his voice. Erin didn't need a truth serum to know that he meant what he said. She wondered to herself silently how many people he had spoken to like this, with sincerity. She didn't think that it would be many. She nodded at him, and he gestured to the bowl that she had carelessly placed next to her mattress.

"You don't want your grey mush to get cold."

Erin let out an unexpected peal of laughter at that, a grin spreading across her face. She looked over at the bowl, an expression of distaste on her face.

"Certainly wouldn't."

Before he turned to leave, he looked at her once more.

"Do me a favour, Jefferson."

His use of her last name surprised her, but she sat up straighter nonetheless.

"What?"

He let out a sigh, "Try not to piss off Pine too much."

That was unexpected. She had thought that he would have asked her to reconsider telling her secret. To reveal to Pine the formula for her serum. There was still a tiny part of her mind that thought that this was all a scheme in order to get her to unveil her secrets.

" _What?"_ She repeated, this time much more confused.

"He can do a lot worse than what he's done so far. He's been going easy on you." The Soldier gestured to her face, where a large purple bruise was creeping down the left side.

"This is going easy?" Erin had never felt worse in her life. Every part of her body ached like she's been run over by a freight truck. If this was going easy, she'd hate to see Pine at his worst. The Soldier nodded silently.

"You amuse him. Your fire. But that's gonna wear off soon enough. Just try to control your mouth around him."

The corner of her mouth lifted up in a grim mockery of a smile.

"I've never been very good at that..."

He rolled his eyes and walked towards the door, scanning it open with his fingerprint, before turning back around, his eyebrows wrinkled together.

"That's what I'm worried about."

* * *

REEEEEVIEW ( and vote ) please, Next time, we have THE GREAT ESCAPE (TM) so keep your eyes peeled for that.


	14. Part One: fourteen

**I'M A SHIT.**

 **i'M SORRY.**

 **I promised that this would be the great escape chapter, and my plan was to do a GIANT FAT 5000 WORD CHAPTER, but i figured it would be better split into 2, so the escape will happen next chapter.**

 **ALSO I SAW CIVIL WAR YESTERDAY AN IT WAS AMAZING IM STILL HYPERVENTILATING**

 **Enjoy x also be warned this chapter is pretty violent x**

* * *

 _'Try to control your mouth around him.'_

That was what the Soldier had told Erin, less than 14 hours ago, but here she was, being held up by two men in khaki uniforms she had never seen before, Colonel Pine looking down at her with a sadistic glint in his eye. So far, controlling her mouth hadn't gone particularly well.

She spat a globule of blood onto the floor, her face stinging from the Colonel's last slap. She took a deep breath inwards, telling herself that this would all be over soon. James had a plan to get her out of there by tonight, and despite the fact that it was unlikely to work as well as she hoped, she kept the thought of freedom in her mind. It was the only thing preventing her from spilling the beans and telling Pine everything that she knew. He had been especially hard today, and Erin ached all over. She was sure that a few of her ribs had been broken by the pummelling that she had received, but still, even now, her face remained strong.

"My Grandma can hit harder than that, and she's dead."

Pine regarded her coldly and Erin flinched, expecting another punch. When it didn't come, she opened her eyes, confused to see that Pine had taken a step backwards his arms folded, a smug look on his face.

This couldn't be good.

"Matthewson." Pine's gaze was directed to the man on her left, whose arms were wrapped tightly around her bicep, preventing her from moving.

"Yes, Sir."

The corner of Pine's mouth twisted up into a smile, wrinkling the scar on his face.

"Break her arm."

Erin's eyes widened slightly as she comprehended what Pine was saying. All the violence up until now had been external, cuts and bruises, nothing that would last. A broken arm was considerably more serious.

"Wait..." She muttered, but the man behind her took no heed. She felt her arm being roughly straightened out, and with great force, he suddenly pushed down hard, bending her forearm in the opposite direction to the joint. There was an audible 'pop', and Erin's vision turned red. The pain was unimaginable, a fire spreading from her elbow all around her body. She was immobile with it, unable to speak, or blink, or move. She could hear somebody screaming, and it took her a while to figure out that it was herself. Her arm hung useless by her side, throbbing.

She heard Pine say something, but her brain couldn't work out what it was. A strong hand threaded through her hair and pulled her face upwards, her vision hazy.

"What's in M.F.C.T.S?" The question came again. Erin let out a shaky breath. Surely, if she told him, all of this would be over. She wouldn't have to stay here anymore, face this treatment. It was tempting, she had to admit.

She let out a small groan of pain, and looked Pine directly in the eyes.

"You know I can't tell you that." Her voice was monotonous, broken.

His eyebrow raised in surprise. What? No insulting quip. No jibe to try to rile him, just a simple answer? He was getting somewhere.

"Why not?"

Erin closed her eyes, her arm still throbbing.

"How many people will get hurt, Pine? I don't want that on my hands."

Pine took another step backwards, surveying Erin with an inquisitive eye. It made no sense to him that a person this tiny could be so irritatingly resolute in her ideals. He wondered to himself how the Soldier was getting on with _his_ half of the mission; had he managed to gain her trust, yet? Pine nodded at the two men holding Erin, and they dropped her unceremoniously on the ground. She let out a bark of pain as her broken arm jarred on the hard grey floor tiles.

"Erin."

She looked up at him, tears in her eyes for the first time.

"There's one thing you need to know about heroes."

Erin quirked an eyebrow, cradling her mangled arm. She wasn't expecting a lecture.

"What?"

Pine gave her a small smile as he unlocked the door, letting the two soldiers leave before turning to go himself, his back to Erin.

"They're always the first to die."

And with that, he closed the door behind himself, leaving Erin once again alone.

"Mission report."

The Soldier stared at Pine, glassy-eyed. He was once again in the larger man's office, once again getting chewed out.

"I have begun to gain the trust of the subject, but she still shows some hostility." His voice was monotonous, his eyes staring blankly ahead. The Winter Soldier wasn't one for emotional responses... usually. He was still slightly embarrassed about the way that he had handled the incident in the Staff Common Room. Private Sean Gardener, the vulgar blonde whom he had managed to throw into a filing cabinet, was currently in the hospital wing nursing three broken ribs and a fractured femur.

Pine snorted at his answer, nodding his head.

"She's pretty hostile, I'll give you that."

'Hostile' was a good word for it. Even now, the Soldier couldn't help but notice the way that Erin flinched slightly every time the door to her room opened. It was as if she was still wary of him, even after everything. She didn't let it show, though. She used that quick tongue of hers to cover up any fear that she felt. The Soldier understood perfectly, it was a survival mechanism.

"When will you have the formula?" Pine's voice was impatient. It had only been four days, and already he was getting bored of her. This was what the Soldier had been worried about. For the first few days, Pine had found Erin somewhat endearing. He had been amused by the way that she had a sassy response to everything, but now he was getting irritated. That meant more pressure on the Soldier to get the serum, as well as a harsher treatment for Erin.

The Soldier though for a while. He had already managed to gain at least some of Erin's trust. She sympathised for him, and that made her more likely to form feelings of empathy and attachment.

"Give me a week."

A week, he hoped, was long enough for him to gain her trust completely. It was unusual for him to be in this type of situation. Most of the missions he faced... well... trust wasn't a main component of them. He didn't know how to make Erin trust him if he didn't even trust himself, but a week should be plenty of time.

And, the chances were, if he gave a short time period to Pine, the man would be less likely to nearly kill the girl in an attempt to get the formula out of her through torture.

The Soldier didn't know why he cared. He didn't know why his stomach tightened every time he walked into Erin's room and saw her lying on the floor in a puddle of her own blood. He had seen enough blood for a lifetime, enough for ten lifetimes, even. Why did he feel so protective of a girl he didn't even know?

There was a small part of his brain that knew the answer. The first time that he had seen her unconscious, tied to that revolting wooden chair with cuts and bruises all over her pale legs, it hadn't been Erin Jefferson that he had seen in his mind's eye.

It had been someone else.

Still blonde, still skinny, still tiny in comparison to him, but he had, for some reason, imagined a man in Erin's place. A man he would die to protect.

He shook the thought from his head, knowing that it was ridiculous. He didn't know any men like that, certainly none that he felt such protective feelings for. He wondered to himself for a second if it was a memory. An _actual_ memory that had somehow managed to sneak back through the years of conditioning and erasure.

Pine stood up, bringing the Soldier out of his thoughts. He stood to attention, his metal arm folded tightly behind his back.

"Make sure it isn't any longer."

The Soldier nodded respectfully, and turned to leave the room. Pine had just returned from another bout with the girl, and now it was the Soldier's turn to do _his_ job.

"One last thing." Pine said, just before the Soldier walked through the door. He turned around, confusion in his blue eyes.

The corner of Pine's mouth twisted up in one of the sadistic smiles the Soldier knew so well.

"Bring a sling bandage. I broke her arm."

* * *

Of course.

Of course Pine had broken the girl's arm.

Surely, it wouldn't be too much bother to just rough her up a bit? A few punches, maybe a slap or two. But no. Actual bone breakage was apparently necessary.

The Soldier didn't know why he was so annoyed by this fact, but he was.

He had stopped off in the medical bay to pick up a triangular sling bandage, as well as a small bottle of antiseptic fluid. He wouldn't be able to fix Erin's arm, but at least he could try his best to bandage it properly.

It wasn't a surprise to him that she was sat on the mattress when he walked in, her head resting on the wall behind her, her eyes closed. He saw that visible flinch when she heard the click of the door closing, but tried to push it from his mind.

Her eyes opened.

Something was wrong. He noticed it immediately. Where Erin's usually cheeky glint had used to be, there was nothing but a blank canvas. She cradled her arm to her chest, the elbow joint already beginning to bruise. She twisted the corner of her mouth up in a small smile as she recognised him, and he walked towards her, sling in hand.

He kneeled in front of her and said it before he could stop himself.

"I'm sorry."

She quirked here eyebrow in confusion at his statement.

"What?"

"About this..." He gestured to her arm, "It was messily done."

She let out a humourless snort at that and looked him in the eyes. It always shocked him, just how dark her eyes were. They were the kind of eyes that a person remembers long after they have gone.

"I don't suppose there's any chance of just lopping it off and hooking me up with one of them?" She gestured to his metal arm with his eyes, and he was so shocked by her question that he actually let out a peal of laughter. Perhaps she wasn't as broken as he had originally assumed. It was weird for him for somebody actually talk about the arm to his face. It was seen as a taboo by most of the people he knew. It was a showcase of his power and his abilities, a sign that he wasn't all human. It was refreshing for somebody to try to make light out of it.

"Can I...?" He gestured to her arm, and she took a deep breath and nodded. He gingerly placed the sling on the floor and carefully took her arm, moving it slowly away from her body.

"Fuuuuuck..." She gritted her teeth, and he winced.

"Sorry." He muttered again, picking the sling up from the floor and sliding it behind her arm, cradling the limp limb in the smooth fabric. Her skin felt cold underneath his hands. He reached behind her neck, and brushed the hair away, tying the sling in a knot at the top of her spine, before letting the dirty blonde tresses fall back. He sat back on his knees and looked at her intently. He guessed she was quite pretty, in an untraditional way. Sure, her nose was slightly too straight and her lips were slightly too large for traditional beauty, but somehow, the combination was almost endearing on her. And then there were those _eyes_ that almost looked like they could see directly into your soul. The Soldier wasn't too keen on that, his soul was something that he would prefer to stay hidden.

"I didn't take you for a doctor."

The corner of his mouth twitched in amusement as he folded his arms over his chest.

"I didn't take you for such a pain in the ass, but evidently we were both wrong."

She let out a laugh at that, rolling her eyes at his comment. He felt a small flutter of warmth in his chest at the sight. His life had been devoid of laughter for so long, he had almost forgotten what it sounded like. She took in a sharp breath as the movement caused her to move her arm, now well wrapped up in a sling. The Soldier's face turned serious.

"I thought I told you to watch your mouth around Pine."

"I'm not very good at following orders."

He rolled his eyes at that. No, evidently she wasn't. She was holding herself slightly asymmetrically, leaning over to one side, her body slightly askew. He looked her in the eyes.

"Broken ribs?"

She raised an eyebrow, impressed.

"A few, by the feel of it."

He shook his head and pushed himself up off the floor, dusting his hands off on his thighs and looking down at Erin, arms folded. If she ended up getting herself killed by goading Pine, he could be sure that he would never get his memories back.

"Please be careful."

She smiled up at him. It was a strange smile, almost sad. As if she knew something that he didn't.

"Whatever you say."

He turned to leave but was stopped at the door by a small mutter of 'Optimus?' from behind him. He turned around to see Erin, looking almost guilty, her arm held up by the messy sling.

"What?"

"If I don't manage to give you back your memories..."

He froze. Was she backing out of this, scared of the repercussions?

"... I'm sorry, alright?"

He didn't understand. Sure, their plan was just that, only a plan, but she had seemed truly excited when she was hypothesising how her serum could manage to retrieve some of his repressed memories. Had Pine really broken her so much that she was scared to help him?

"Are you getting cold feet?" He managed to keep the shake out of his voice. This was the furthest he had ever come to retrieving his memories, he wasn't about to lose her now.

She laughed, but he sensed a small amount of nervousness in the noise.

"Not at all. I'm as ready as ever."

"Well then, there's nothing to worry about."

He nodded, and forced himself to give her a small smile, before walking out of the room, shutting the door behind him. Erin let out a deep sigh as he left, relaxing. No, she wasn't changing her mind about helping him, she was just running away. She couldn't exactly have told him that, could she? She realised that, even after everything, she felt guilty.

This man, this broken man, had trusted her to help to fix him, and she was leaving him here, under the 'care' of Colonel Pine. She shook her head.

She was being ridiculously sentimental.

This guy had kidnapped her from her apartment, and had only shown her basic kindnesses, she was almost positive, for some ulterior motive. It wasn't like she would be leaving a friend behind.

She sighed and manoeuvred herself onto her back, letting out a huff of pain as her arm jolted in its socket. It wouldn't be long, now, until James Goodwinson would arrive at the door, and they would both be out of there. Back to Washington, back to S.H.I.E.L.D., back to her lab and her friends and her life.

So why was there a slither of doubt worming its way into her gut?

She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. She would need all the energy that she could get for when she was awoken again.

* * *

PLEASE CHUCK IN A REVIEW IF YOU LIKED IT X


	15. Part One: fifteen

This

is

all

angst

and im sorry about that.

* * *

Sleep didn't come very easy to Erin that night. It may have been something to do with the fact that her left arm was throbbing a steady beat of pain, shooting streaks of agony from her elbow to her shoulder. It was more likely to do with the fact that tonight was _the_ night. Tonight was that night that Goodwinson was going to get her out of there.

At least, she hoped it was. With no clocks or timepieces in her holding cell, she had no idea what time it was. For all she knew, it had already gone midnight and James had changed his mind and decided not to help her after all.

She sighed and closed her eyes, re-adjusting her position on the mattress and wincing slightly as the movement caused her arm to jerk, shooting another dagger of pain up her shoulder. She had to stop thinking so pessimistically. Goodwinson would arrive soon and she would be out of there. She wondered what would happen to the guards who were supposed to be posted outside her cell at all times. She doubted that Pine would be particularly 'understanding' about the fact that she had managed to sneak away during their change over.

And what about the tall man with the metal arm? What would he do, once his only chance of recovering his memories had sneaked off in the night? It struck Erin that she still didn't know his name. She still referred to him as 'Optimus' in her mind, as much as that embarrassed her.

He was an enigma wrapped in a conundrum.

She couldn't say that he didn't intimidate her: the guy wasn't a brick shithouse of muscle like Pine, but there was a definition to his broad shoulders and a certain way that he held himself that told Erin that if he had wanted her dead at any point during the last four days, he would have succeeded. Without much effort. And then there was that monstrosity of a metal arm, all whirring nuts and bolts, a gaudy red star painted to the shoulder of it. He said he hadn't chosen to have it but that didn't mean that he wasn't prepared to use it. She knew that he was dangerous so why was she so keen to help him?

There was a small creak from the door and Erin's eyes snapped open. She sat up like a shot, letting out a small curse as her arm jarred once more. She was going to have to keep an eye on that. James Goodwinson slid through the small opening and she grinned. Their plan was in motion.

"And here I was, thinking you weren't going to come..." There was a smile in her voice and on her face.

"Get up. Quickly." He walked towards her as she tried to push herself up off the mattress with her good arm and grabbed her gently by the shoulders. He helped her up, then grabbed her good hand tightly and almost dragged her out of the room. She followed him on bare feet, the sensitive skin of her soles slapping loudly against the hard cold floor. Erin turned around, took one last glance at the room in which she had spent the worst days of her life (so far, at least), then followed Goodwinson out of the door.

The corridor was dimly lit and her eyes took a moment or two to adjust to the change in lighting. Goodwinson had been right, there were no guards in sight, but that didn't mean that they wouldn't return soon. He locked the door to Erin's cell with the key card that he had obviously stolen and turned to face her. He was obviously more scared than he let himself appear.

"This way." He took her good hand once again and led her through the tight metal corridor. She stumbled slightly as he pulled her, her legs unsteady from such a long time of disuse, but she managed to keep up a relatively good speed. The corridors were like a maze and the two of them made so many twists and turns in their journey that she doubted she would be able to find her way back. Erin couldn't help but notice the HYDRA insignias, red and all-seeing, painted on each wall like a brand. You couldn't forget where you were in this place. And they would not let you.

Soon, Erin's legs were beginning to burn. Sure, the small bowl of Dickens style porridge-gruel that she had been given yesterday had given her some much-needed sustenance but it certainly wasn't enough to keep the lactic acid from building up in her disused muscles as she ran. Goodwinson, however, showed no signs of slowing down. It was only when they reached a particularly steep corner that he stopped, jerking himself to a standstill.

"What's wrong-" Erin managed to say through panting breaths. Goodwinson slapped one of his hands over her mouth immediately, muffling any further sound from her. He had his back to the wall and he peeked around the corner, before slamming the back of his head against the bricks in annoyance.

"Shit..." He whispered, removing his hand from Erin's mouth, "The corridor's blocked."

Her eyes widened.

"And by blocked you mean...?"

He rolled his eyes.

"I mean soldiers, Erin."

Well shit. Erin took the small break that they were having to regain her breath, before looking again at Goodwinson. He was breathing heavily, a small red flush of blood rushing through his face. He looked back at her.

"What do we do?" She asked, fear beginning to creep up her gut for the first time. What if they had come all this way for nothing?

"There's another way out," He whispered in response, a sheen of sweat beginning to show in his smooth forehead. Erin hadn't noticed before, with all the adrenaline and rush, but Goodwinson looked terrible. He had dark bags under his pale eyes and his hair looked like it hadn't seen any soap in a long time. He probably hadn't slept at all in the last two days, the fear of this escape weighing on his mind.

He looked around the corner once more, and, convinced that the soldiers loitering in the corridor weren't going to move, turned once again to Erin.

"Back the way we came and through a side-door. There's a Parking Lot there."

He looked unconvinced at her arm.

"Can you drive?"

She nodded in affirmative. Theoretically she could drive with one hand, she guessed. In practice, well. It is a life or death situation. The corner of James' mouth quirked up into a smile.

"Good. I've not got my licence yet."

She raised an eyebrow. He didn't have his licence?

"How _old_ are you, James?"

He smiled at that, an actual smile, and he took hold of her hand once more before leading her back through the corridor they had just run through.

"Twenty one."

Twenty one. Shit. The guy was barely out of his teens, Erin couldn't help but feel slightly guilty about the fact that she could be getting him into serious trouble.

"Twenty one, James?" She replied in shock as he opened up a side-door and snuck inside. Another corridor faced them, this one slightly less well-lit.

"What did I tell you about underestimating me?" There was a smile in his voice. The pair of them reached another door, a fire exit, and he slid his key-card through the scanner, grinning as it opened.

"This is the first time I've ever done anything like this," He admitted, babbling slightly as she followed him inside. They walked down a small flight of stairs, before being faced with yet another dark corridor. Erin sighed to herself. This escape plan was involving much more cardio than she had anticipated. _AND_ this place had perfect horror movie sets. Maybe HYDRA should consider pimping this place out to Warner Brothers when they were finished with it.

"Breaking the rules isn't allowed in HYDRA," James explained as they walked, "I mean, it's not allowed anywhere, but in HYDRA... it's different."

Erin nodded in understanding. HYDRA wasn't just a company, it was an ideology, an ideology that its members would (seemingly) die to protect. She had heard tales of HYDRA soldiers preferring to take their own lives rather than give up their secrets. If James got found out, he would be killed.

"Well we better make sure nobody knows it was you, huh?" She tried to joke, but the tightness in her voice betrayed her nervousness. James noticed, but smiled anyway, preferring to ignore it.

They walked in silence for a while until Erin heard a voice that made her heart stop and her blood run cold.

"JAMES!"

The booming voice of Colonel Pine echoed through the small corridor. It couldn't be ignored. Goodwinson froze when he heard it, literally stopping in his steps. His eyes had widened in disbelief.

He turned around, almost in slow motion. Erin pulled on his hand.

"What the fuck are you doing, James? We need to run!"

He shook her hand off, looking at the looming silhouetted figure of Colonel Pine, stood on his own, about 100 feet from them.

"James."

Pine's voice was slightly softer now. Erin didn't understand why James wouldn't just take her hand and run, but he seemed almost frozen to the spot, his face blank.

"Dad?"

Erin's eyebrow quirked in confusion. What did he just say?

"James, don't do this."

Pine took a step forwards and Erin unconsciously took a step back. James, however, stayed in the exact same place.

"Dad, I can explain."

"You fucking better..." Erin muttered to herself, but James ignored her. He took a step forwards, towards Pine, towards his _father_ Erin realised.

Erin guessed she could see a resemblance. The same slightly crooked nose, the same grey eyes under the same heavy brow. The similarities ended there. Where James was skinny, lanky and tall, Pine was broad, his muscles straining under the tight white shirt that was tucked into his regulation black trousers. Erin recalled a conversation that she had had with James where he had mentioned his family. The 'family business', he had called it, like it was some big joke. She'd just laughed it off. She shouldn't have. But the again, she certainly hadn't expected _this_.

"It's not fair, dad. Treating her like this, she's not a criminal." James tried to explain. His hands were folded in front of himself once again. Clasped together in an attempt to stop them from shaking.

"James, come here." Pine's voice was authoritative and James walked towards him in an almost trance-like state.

"James, no..." Erin muttered, but he paid her no heed, his long steps quickly covering the ground between him and Pine. She had a bad feeling about this.

Pine smiled as James neared him, raising his arms in something that almost looked as if he wanted to give the smaller man a hug. A sense of trepidation was brewing in Erin's gut.

"Son, what are you doing?" Pine's voice was softer now, almost paternal. She saw James' shoulders visibly relax as Pine spoke.

"It's not right. What we're doing here." He replied as he walked.

The distance between them closed and Pine opened up his arms, encircling them around the smaller boy. Erin's heartbeat was in her ears.

There was a small glint of something silver, almost too quick for Erin's eyes to register and Pine brought his head up, looking directly at her over the shoulder of his son. His mouth quirked up in a grim mockery of a smile, the scar on the side of his face twisting grotesquely.

"Hail HYDRA." He whispered, the words echoing loudly in the large corridor. Erin opened her mouth to warn James, lifted up her hand, as if that would stop Pine. But it was all too late. Almost in slow motion, Pine brought his right hand up to his son's side. The silver object, a sharp dagger, Erin realised, buried itself into Goodwinson's side. The small clinical voice in her mind noted that it obviously dug straight into his kidney. He let out a small grunt of pain and Erin screamed. A real blood-curdling scream. She took a step forwards, her mouth open wide as the dark blood pooled out of the younger man's side, covering Pine's hand and forearm. He knelt down, slowly bringing Goodwinson's body to the ground before standing up and taking a step back, watching as James, as his _son_ twitched on the floor, blood pooling around him and leaking from his mouth in a frothy mixture of red saliva for four or five seconds before lying still, the blood forming a pool around his now limp body. Erin was still screaming, her hands on her mouth.

"JAMES!" She yelled, almost as if she expected the boy to hear her and get up. Dust himself off and continue with their escape.

"He was a CHILD! HE WAS A BOY!" She was screaming at Pine now, her throat aching.

He cleaned the blood off his knife with the corner of his shirt and tucked it back into his pocket, before lifting his eyes to look at her. They were dark, almost black, the pupils blown so wide that Erin could barely see that signature grey. She took a step backwards.

"He betrayed us. He had to die." Pine's voice was dull, lifeless. Just like his recently deceased son. Erin noticed that his hand, clenched up in a ball, was shaking. Another step back.

"You didn't have to...You didn't need to..." she muttered, almost to herself.

She was stepping backwards continuously now, as Pine was stepping forwards. Over the limp body of James and closer to her.

"He died trying to break you out, Erin." His voice shook with barely concealed anger, "My son died trying to break you out. This is your fault."

Those two words hit her in the gut. The pain in Pine's face was obvious. He blamed her for what had happened. In his mind, she had corrupted Goodwinson so much that he had ignored the fundamental ideologies of HYDRA and had instead tried to help her escape.

"This is your fault." It was almost a whisper of realisation.

His steps sped up and Erin knew what was about to happen. She turned on her heel and ran as fast as she could, the sound of Pine's heavy boots close behind her. She had no idea where she was going, her vision was blurred with tears and the lack of lighting did nothing to help. She scanned the walls. Looking for something, anything that would tell her where the Parking Lot were. She followed her nose, the sound of Pine's footsteps getting further. She turned a corner and was faced with another corridor, and she continued to run. Her arm was burning, the thin sling that she had been given did nothing to protect it from the jostling that her running was doing. She kept going.

If she had to choose between a sore arm and death, she would pick the arm every time.

Her bare feet slapped against the granite stone underneath her as she spun past another corner, nearly slipping, but managing to upright herself just in time. She looked ahead of herself and her eyebrows raised as she saw a small sign at the end of the long corridor.

'Parking Lot'

She gave a manic half laugh and, sending up a quick prayer of thanks to any deity who was listening, headed towards it, the taste of freedom almost on her tongue. She was going to get out of here. She was going to live.

James wouldn't have died for nothing.

She was nearing the end of the corridor when a tall figure stepped out from the shadows. Standing in front of her in a stance of power, legs shoulder-width apart, metal arm glistening with unspoken potential.

Erin's heart dropped and her feet slowed to a stop, until she was maybe three metres from the Soldier. He looked at her with blank eyes.

He was going to kill her.

She had promised him that she would help him retrieve his memories. She had promised him that she would try to get his life back to how it was.

And she had lied.

He surveyed her in front of him and took a step forwards. She took a step back. The Soldier's mouth quirked up into something that could very almost be described as a smile at her movement.

"Are we dancing, now?" His voice was low, echoing loudly in the room. Erin took a deep breath inwards.

He took her lack of response as an answer and reached into his back pocket with his normal arm, pulling out something that glinted slightly silver in the light. A knife.

This was it, Erin thought to herself. This was how she was going to die. She was never going to finish her serum, never going to see her friends or family again. She was going to be another 'dissapearance' on HYDRA's list.

The Soldier's arm raised and Erin lifted her head up, bracing herself. He threw the silver object at her with some force and she closed her eyes, raising her hand instinctually to catch it. It hit her palm gently, and her fingers closed over the cold metal. There was no pain.

She opened her eyes, confused, and looked down at her hand. A single pair of car keys rested in her palm, the heavy weight of them grounding her. She looked up in disbelief at the Soldier. His left eye closed in a wink and he smiled at her.

"Drive safe."

With that, he turned on his heel and walked away, disappearing into the shadows. Erin didn't wait to be told twice. She could already hear the heavy footsteps of Pine getting louder and louder. She ran through the doorway and was greeted by a small room, full of cars in all shapes and sizes. She pressed the button on the key and smiled to herself as she saw a small blue Ford Focus light up, unlocking.

Not quite a Ferarri, but it would do.

She opened the door and slid inside, placing the key in the ignition and turning. The sound of a car jumping asthmatically to life had never given her such joy before. Putting the Ford into first gear, she manoeuvred her way out of the parking space and began to drive, one hand on the steering wheel, the other still throbbing painfully against her chest. She put her foot down, driving past the other cars and out into the dark night.

She was free.

* * *

Alright, ya know the drill ;) If you're liking this story, please please PLEASE vote and/or review to show it xx

And im sorry about Goodwinson. He's a good guy. Did you guys pick up any of the previos references hinting that he and Pine were related?


	16. Part One: sixteen

OOOOOoooooh boyo are you guys gonna hate me after this Chapter.

"Tell me what happened."

The Soldier pulled his arms slightly against the restraints on the chair, but to no avail. Whatever these things had been made out of, it was strong enough to prevent even his metal arm from breaking it. He looked up at Pine, his face stony, not allowing a single word to escape his mouth.

The taller man smiled and gestured to a gentleman behind the Soldier. There was a shuffling of movement, and a strong hand was placed on his chest, pushing him backwards. He didn't struggle, instead, letting his head flop backwards slightly. He had been in this room countless times.

He knew what was about to happen.

"You don't have to say anything," Pine said, seeming to enjoy the power that he held over the brunet, "We have it all recorded."

The Soldier resisted the urge to sigh. Evidently luck wasn't on his side today. It had only been hours since Erin had escaped, and despite the fact that HYDRA had sent off more than 20 manned vehicles to try to bring her back, the Soldier knew that it would be in vain. They were twenty minutes from Krakow, one of the most densely populated cities in Poland. Once Erin reached there, she would be invisible.

Just another person in the crowd. They would never find her.

It made no sense to him, none at all. What the fuck had he been thinking, letting her go? It had gone against everything that he had been taught. Every instinct that he had had been screaming at him to knock her out and drag her back to that dingy cell, but something had stopped him at the last minute.

He knew what it was, and he hated himself for it.

It was the second in which he had taken a single step forward, and she had taken one back, fear in her eyes. In that one second, the Soldier had forgotten all the years of training, all the hours and hours of sensitivity conditioning. He had forgotten for a second that he was supposed to be guarding her, he had been sent to bring her back. In that one second, all he could think was that he would give anything never to see that look in her eyes again.

And what had he done?

He'd thrown her the fucking keys.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"What were you thinking, huh?" Pine continued, seeming to enjoy the power that he held over the Soldier, "That we wouldn't find out about your little stunt? You're supposed to be loyal to us. And only us."

Still he was silent.

"And some little blonde bitch in a tight pair of shorts comes along, and suddenly you forget everything you've been taught?"

A muscle in the Soldier's jaw twitched. Pine noticed, and that smile began to creep up his face again.

"What did you think was going to happen? She was going to fall madly in love with you?"

"That wasn't why I did it." His voice was low, almost inaudible, but Pine heard it.

"Then why did you do it?"

The Soldier was silent for a while.

"It was the right thing to do."

"He's been out of ice for too long," The voice came from behind the Soldier, the meaning behind the words sending an involuntary shiver up his spine, "I think that's what's affected him. We should wipe him and put him under again."

Pine nodded silently, taking another step towards the Soldier, and bending down so the two were face to face, nose to nose. Pine's expression was stony, there was no sign that he had any remorse for what he had done only hours earlier. To kill any man in cold blood required a certain amount of detachment, but Pine's own son? HYDRA was nothing if not ruthlessly efficient in reaching its goal.

The Soldier stared back at Pine, silent fury in his eyes, blue on grey. After a few seconds of tension, Pine blinked, stepping back. The shorter man felt a small burst of satisfaction in his stomach at having won the stare-off, regardless of how insignificant the victory was. His jubilation was short-lived, however, as Pine nodded to the gentleman behind him, and the all-too-familiar feeling of a thick piece of rubber was shoved unceremoniously into his mouth.

He began to panic.

He couldn't do this again, couldn't start right from the beginning, with nothing. Not when he was so goddamn _close_ to getting his memories back. He pulled his arms tighter against the restraints, heard them creak slightly under the immense pressure of his metal arm, but they didn't give in. He looked around the room with wild eyes, his breathing heavy. A small noise came from the back of his throat as he struggled, and he saw the corner of Pine's mouth quirk into a smile as he realised how scared he was.

"Not so tough with an electrode to your brain, huh?" The taller man folded his arms over his chest as two metal plates were placed either side of the Soldier's head. He could feel the buzzing in his ears at the electricity running through them.

All of a sudden, there was pain everywhere. Running through his skull, his arms, his legs, down his back. He screamed, but couldn't hear the noise as the red-hot bolts of electricity ran through his brain, burning away the memories as they went. He couldn't think of anything but how much he hurt. His eyes watered, blearing his vision until all he could see was a mesh of different coloured lights.

Don't forget. Don't forget.

A single pair of impossibly brown eyes flashed across his vision before everything went black.

* * *

Erin pushed her foot down further on the gas pedal, speeding through the empty road, her broken arm jolting with pain every time she went over a bump. She was positive that they had sent people after her, of course they had, but her hope was to get to a big city and blend in with the population so that the HYDRA soldiers couldn't find her.

It would be a lot easier if the road signs were in English, however.

It had never occurred to Erin that she had been taken out of America, never even crossed her mind, so when she saw a large sign with the word 'Miasto' written on it, she had been understandably confused. She'd followed it, however, in the hope that eventually it may bring her to a city of some sort.

She was exhausted, nearly falling asleep at the wheel, her eyes blurring. From tears or tiredness, she wasn't sure. She was still shaken after what had happened at the facility. For Pine to murder his son in cold blood... Goodwinson had been trying to help her. She could still see his lifeless body crumpled on the floor when she closed her eyes.

That nightmare would take a long time to go.

And as for her daring escape, when Optimus Prime had thrown her the keys and told her to 'drive safe'? What in the fuck had that been about? It made no sense to her that he would risk his life just to get her out. He should have been angry that she was leaving without helping him to retrieve his memories, but instead, he let her go without even trying to stop her.

Something was definitely not right.

She spotted lights in the distance, and sped up, driving towards them. All she needed to do was get to a phone and call Bruce, or Fury, or even Tony. A single phone call and S.H.I.E.L.D would be here within the day. Wherever ' _here_ ' was.

The lights got slightly closer, and Erin felt her heart lift as she realised that it was a city, the bright lights coming from restaurants and streetlamps.

"Thank God," she muttered to herself as she pulled her car to a stop and climbed out of the passenger door. She had to hold onto the side of the vehicle for a second to steady herself, her legs were weak after four days of inactivity, and the bare skin was still covered in a multitude of scratches and scars. She looked at her reflection in the window of the car.

She was a mess.

Her hair had matted into a large clump at the front of her head, stuck together by dried blood, and there was an ugly bruise covering one side of her face. She looked like living death.

A phone. She just had to get to a phone.

She left the car where it was, and slowly stumbled towards a group of young women, all chatting excitedly. Their eyes widened when they saw her, and she was immediately asked questions in a language that she absolutely couldn't understand.

"A phone." she gesticulated, "Can you direct me to a phone?"

They didn't understand a word that she was saying, so she formed a phone-shape with her hand and held it up to her ear.

"Phone," she emphasised. One of the girls understood her rudimentary sign language and reached into her small handbag, pulling out a cell.

" _Wszystko w porządku_?" she asked, her dark brown hair falling out of its tight bun. Erin shook her head.

"I can't understand you. I can't..." She thought for a second, "English? Do you speak English?" Her voice was slightly raspy. One of the girls, a tall redhead from the back of the group, pushed herself forwards, a warmly concerned smile on her face.

"I am can speak English." She told Erin with a heavy accent, "What did happen to you?"

Erin took the cell phone of the brunette and started rapidly typing in Bruce's number. She was lucky that she had memorised it.

"Bad people," She tried to explain, "Bad people took me."

But was that all true? Goodwinson certainly wasn't a bad person, certainly didn't deserve to die in the way that he had. And Optimus... was he a bad person, with his blank stares and cold words? She was positive that the man had killed before, many times, but could he be held accountable if he didn't know what he was doing? She pushed the thought from her mind and held the phone up to her ear.

"Hello?" The voice on the other end was throaty and tired. Erin had completely forgotten that, given that she wasn't in America, there would be a different time-zone.

"Bruce." She said urgently, "Fuck, it's good to hear your voice, man."

"Erin, where the hell are you?" Bruce sounded concerned, his voice picking up instantly "You've not turned up to work in days. Fury won't listen to me, but I'm worried about you. Is this some sort of rebellion?"

"Rebellion?"

"I don't fucking know, you're unhappy with wages or something? Because I don't deserve this shit, I've been out of my mind all week."

Erin raised her eyebrows. She had never heard Bruce swear before. She took a glance at the red-headed woman in front of her, who was looking at her intently.

"Where am I?" She mouthed.

"Krakow," the woman replied, confused. As if it was obvious.

"Krakow?" Erin almost yelled in surprise. Poland? She was in fucking Poland?

"What?" Bruce had heard her.

"Listen, Bruce. I don't have much time on this phone, but I'm in Krakow."

"On vacation?"

She rolled her eyes.

"HYDRA, Bruce. They found out about MFCTS, and they've been trying to fucking punch it out of me for the last four days. I only just managed to escape."

There was silence on the other end of the phone line. All Erin could hear was heavy breathing.

"Where are you exactly?" Bruce's voice had changed. It was hard, all business. He had gone into doctor-mode, "How hurt are you? Can you walk?"

"Yeah. I can walk. I'm a little unsteady, but I can walk."

She could hear Bruce exhale a deep breath.

"This is my fault," he muttered, and Erin could almost feel the shaking in his voice. This was bad. She couldn't afford for him to Hulk out over this, she needed him to keep talking to her.

"Bruce, tell me what to do."

"How much did they hurt you?"

"Tell me what to do."

"Look around you." Erin quirked an eyebrow but did as he asked.

"What do you see?"

She spun around, glancing at the landmarks. Her eyes spotted a large hotel on her left, lit up in dazzling golden lights.

"I can see a hotel. It's called the Monte Christo."

"Alright, Erin. I want you to go in there and wait at the reception. I've contacted Fury, he's sending a team out to you now. They should be there in seven hours."

Seven hours. She could do that. She could wait that long.

"Go into the reception, and wait there for them. You're going to be okay. You're going to be safe, now Erin. God, I'm so sorry."

"Thanks, Bruce. Thank you."

She switched off the phone and handed it back to the brunette, who was staring at her openly, shocked. Erin supposed she couldn't blame her. A woman in a fucking take-that concert shirt covered in blood stains looking like an extra from 'The Walking Dead' was bound to cause some shock. The girl took the phone from her with a nod and said something in fast Polish to her ginger friend.

"Will you be alright. Do you need us to help you?"

Erin smiled and shook her head.

"No. I'll be okay. Thank you. Thank you so much."

She walked towards the Monte Christo hotel with something that couldn't quite be described as a spring in her step, considering that she was walking with a limp that the Elephant Man would be proud of, but was certainly something. S.H.I.E.L.D. were coming for her.

She stepped through the double doors, and almost sighed as the warm air from the heaters hit her. It had been so long since she had felt warm. S.H.I.E.L.D were coming for her, and this nightmare was nearly over.

* * *

Cold.

That was all he felt at first, but as the warmth slowly began to return to his body, other sensations came with it. The tips of his fingers began to tingle, and he shook his arms, wincing as the pins-and-needles feeling of blood returning to them came back to him. The Soldier looked around himself, and his eyes immediately focused on an incredibly tall, well-built man in a Colonel's uniform, standing directly in front of him.

Coming out of ice was never easy, but it was usually made easier when there were people around.

"Soldier?" The taller man asked. He had an unusual scar down the left-hand side of his face, and it twitched slightly when he moved.

"Reporting for duty." The monotonous voice left the Soldier's mouth. He saw a small smirk form at the corner of the taller man's mouth and pondered on it for a second. Did he know this man somehow? His face wasn't one the Soldier recognised.

"My name is Colonel Pine. You will be following my orders from now onwards. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Sir." The reply was instant.

"Then I have a new mission for you, Soldier."

Pine took a step forward, a glint in his eye.

"I want you to find Nick Fury. And I want you to kill him."

* * *

Dun Dun Dun Dun... Alrighty, for those of you unsure, this is basically where Captain America: The Winter Soldier starts. Let me tell you, things are about to get VERY interesting. And as always, please chuck in a review if you liked this chapter, or didn't like it, or if you have any suggestions for possible future chapters... anything and everything, I always love getting reviews x


	17. Part Two: one

I'm BACK a ITinG !

HOPE YOU LIKE THIS CHAPTER

* * *

"And that's how the liver works,"

Erin concluded her PowerPoint, complete with poor quality animations and rainbow WordArt. Anything to try to make the renal system stick in the heads of her seventy-three undergraduate Biochemistry students.

"Any questions?" She wasn't surprised when no hands shot up. It was half past four on a Friday and the sweltering heat was exacerbated by the lack of windows in her stuffy lecture theatre. She glanced upwards from her desk at the sea of bored sweaty faces in front of her. The lesson wasn't supposed to finish for another thirty minutes, but she decided to let them go home anyway. There wasn't much else she could teach them in a room that felt like a sauna.

"Alright. Get out." She joked. There was a small murmur of a chuckle from the students as they packed away their laptops and notepapers into their bags, their minds already on the night ahead of them instead of the two-hour lecture behind them.

"And have a good Friday," Erin continued, switching off her own computer and unplugging it from the ancient projector that hung unceremoniously from the ceiling, "Try not to drink too much alcohol. Which the liver turns _to_...?"

"Ethanal." The resounding answer came. Well, at least they had remembered something.

"Which is then converted to...?"

"Ethanoic acid." A few more people spoke this time, beginning to wake up as they started to file one by one out of the lecture theatre.

"I'll make scientists out of you guys yet." Erin muttered to herself as they walked out, some saying a cheery, 'Bye!' to her, others leaving in silence until the room was completely empty. She packed all her equipment into her black rucksack and tied her hair up behind her head in a high ponytail, pulling a few strands out to frame her face before setting off.

She knocked the lights off with her elbow and pushed the door open, sighing as she stepped into the slightly more air-conditioned corridor. She's been in that stuffy room all day. It was nice to finally feel like she could breathe again.

It had been three months since the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. Three months since she had found herself without a job.

Luckily for her, Bruce Banner knew a guy from the physics department at American University Washington and he had pulled a few strings and hooked her up with a teaching job. The hours were long and hard and it was a thankless job, but the pay was decent. She didn't have as much freedom as she had with S.H.I.E.L.D, however. There was no way that the University would approve her continuation of the MFCTS project. Not only would it cost money that they couldn't afford to lose, but they would deem forcing a human being to tell the truth regardless of the circumstances 'immoral'.

Erin guessed that they had a point but it didn't stop her annoyance at her greatest project being stopped before she really had a chance to start it.

The corridors were mainly empty as she walked down them, bag on her back. A low voice calling her name as she passed the University reception caused her to look back in curiosity. A tall man in a tight-fitted white shirt tucked into smart black trousers jogged down the hallway trying to catch up with her. His dark brown hair was styled in a just-got-out-of-bed look that had probably taken hours to perfect. She smiled, recognising him as one of the teachers in the Medical department. He wasn't unattractive, she noticed. He'd let his facial hair grow out into a small patch of stubble along his jawline and she had to admit that it suited him.

"Daveed, hi!"

The man finally caught up to her, hardly out of breath. He placed his hands on his hips and gave her a beaming smile.

"Erin. Sorry about this," he gestured to himself, "I wanted to catch you after your lecture but I thought it finished at five?"

She snorted. Theoretically, it finished at five, the reality was often quite different.

"I let them out early. It's Friday, they're young. They deserve a drink."

Daveed smiled at that.

"Speaking of drinks, Jefferson, I was wondering if you'd like to go out tonight?"

Erin was slightly taken aback to say the least. She had barely ever spoken to the guy but she supposed that if a few of the teachers were going out, it might be fun to tag along.

"Sure," she grinned, "Who else is going?"

He chuckled self-consciously and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, shuffling slightly in his place.

"I was hoping just the two of us."

Oh. _Oh._

"You mean like a _date?_ " Erin's smile returned. Well, this was flattering.

The man nodded. "If I pick you up around seven, is that okay?"

"Seven. Yeah. Seven sounds good." She hoisted her back slightly higher on her shoulder, "Seven sounds great. Could I get your number?"

Daveed reached into his pocket and produced a small business card. Nice. Erin was going on a date with a guy who had his own _business cards._ She was going up in the world.

"See you then. Wear something nice." Daveed smiled and tilted his head to her, before walking back the way he had come, his hands in his pockets. Erin couldn't help but notice that he had slightly more of a swagger to his walk than he had done before their conversation. She smiled to herself.

It seemed like her life really was getting back on track.

She exited the university to blaring sunlight and smiled inwardly to herself. It was a lovely day. She considered momentarily going for a jog but decided against it when she noted the time. She had an appointment with her therapist at 5 and her watch was slowly approaching quarter to.

That was Bruce's fault as well.

He had been on the helicopter that had flown into Krakow to rescue her, what felt like so long ago. He had seen first-hand what she had looked like, sat alone in that dingy Hotel, her legs more scar tissue than skin. He had physically carried her into the chopper, regardless of her protests that she was _'fine goddamnit'._

As soon as her feet had got back on American soil, Bruce had set her up with Dr Kennedy, a S.H.I.E.L.D. psychiatrist who specialised in post-traumatic stress. Erin had originally refused point blank to see him but over time, she had begun to trust the guy. There was something about his smooth baritone voice and slightly greying curly black hair that managed to relax her. Even after S.H.I.E.L.D. had come crumbling down, Erin continued to see Dr Kennedy.

The nightmares weren't as frequent on the days that she talked to him.

She reached his office ten minutes early and patiently sat outside in the waiting room until he opened the door, a smile on his face, his bright white teeth juxtaposing his coffee-coloured skin.

"Erin, come on in."

She smiled and picked up her bag, walking into his office and plonking herself down in one of the thickly padded armchairs that he had scattered around the room.

"How was your week?"

The doctor rooted around in his desk before picking out a thick black ring-binder. Her file. He opened it up, sifting through the pages, and picked up a pen, looking at her expectantly.

"Not too bad," She answered honestly, "Students can be a pain in the arse at times, but it's been a good week."

"And how about your relationships outside work?"

Erin let out a deep sigh. Since she came back from Poland, complete with scars and a tremor in her left hand that would go away no matter how much yoga she did, her friendship group had slowly dwindled. She couldn't blame them. It wasn't particularly exciting to hang around with a girl who jumped every time she heard a loud noise.

"I saw Bruce on Monday for coffee." She answered. Kennedy raised an eyebrow.

"Anything else?"

"Daveed from the Medical department asked me out on a date," she continued. A small smile spread across the doctor's face.

"That's brilliant, Erin! A strong relationship is exactly what you need at the moment. Something to take your mind off everything that's been going on recently. How do you feel about it?"

She leant her head back, crossing her hands over her lap.

"Alright. A bit nervous."

"Do you like him?"

"Yeah," she answered truthfully, "He seems like a nice guy."

The doctor jotted something down on his paper and looked back up at Erin, his face serious.

"What about the nightmares? Have they been getting any better?"

There was a long silence before Erin answered, her voice quiet.

"It's always the same."

Kennedy nodded, closing the file and placing it on his lap, looking at Erin intently.

"The man with the metal arm?"

He didn't fail to notice the way that Erin flinched slightly when he spoke, but decided not to mention it. Her hand was twitching again, the first and second fingers drumming an erratic rhythm on her leg.

"I'm running. I'm always running, usually from Pine. Sometimes from unknown soldiers. Sometimes even from Goodwinson _._ "

Kennedy raised an eyebrow. He knew, of course, the names of all of the people Erin had been in contact with during her time in Krakow. She had told him enough times that he had memorised every detail.

"Goodwinson? What do you think that means?"

Erin rubbed her hand across her jawline.

"He's angry at me. I didn't save him."

"You still blame yourself for his death." It wasn't a question, but a statement. Erin nodded regardless.

"He was twenty-one. He was just a kid."

"He was only two years younger than you are Erin," The doctor seemed adamant, "It wasn't your fault that Pine killed him."

"It was my fault he tried to help me to escape."

"What happens next?" Kennedy moved on from the subject of Goodwinson. He knew that Erin beat herself up over not saving the boy. "In your dream, what happens next?"

"I'm running, and suddenly, the ground falls out from beneath me and I'm hanging onto the floor for dear life, my legs dangling into nothing."

"Dreams of falling can often symbolise your own fears of failure," Kennedy interjected but Erin didn't seem to even notice he had spoken. Her eyes had almost glazed over as she thought.

"He's always there. The man with the metal arm. He's standing above me, arm outstretched. It looks like he's going to help me up, but at the last second-"

She stopped talking. Kennedy didn't bother asking her to continue. She had been having the same dreams for the last six months and he knew them in minute detail. This man, the 'man with the metal arm', would appear to try to help Erin from falling, before pulling an automatic pistol from his belt and shooting her directly between the eyes. That was when she woke up, panting and sweaty.

Every goddamn time.

"HYDRA is broken, Erin," The doctor tried to reassure her. Her left hand had joined her right in the samba beat that they were drumming out on her upper thigh, her fingers twitching nervously, "They can't hurt you anymore. None of them can."

She nodded in understanding.

"I know. But that doesn't mean I can forget."

* * *

It was dark by the time that Erin set off home, the time on her watch said six. An hour until her date with Daveed. She had nothing to wear, of course. He had told her to dress 'nice', which usually meant a skirt.

Erin didn't do skirts.

Not since Colonel Stephen Pine had been let loose on her legs with a butterfly knife and turned what had originally been her best feature into a crosshatch of fading scars that looked more like a Jackson Pollock painting than human skin.

She reached her apartment in record time, unlocking the door and slipping inside, glad to be back home even if it was for just an hour. She didn't bother switching the light on, instead stumbling through the dark living room to her bedroom, throwing her rucksack onto her sofa. She switched her bedroom light on, filling the room with comforting yellow light and went straight to her wardrobe, pulling her white work blouse off over her head and searching through her clothes.

"Nice, nice, nice. I don't have anything nice, Dav... Couldn't you have just taken me somewhere scuzzy?"

Her eyes settled on a black silk blouse with a low neckline, and she smiled to herself, plucking it off the hanger and slipping it on over her torso. She glanced down at her trousers. Skinny black jeans with a toothpaste stain on the thigh. She shimmied out of them, throwing them onto her bed and turning back to the wardrobe, hunting for something that could be considered 'Nice'. A multitude of grey sweatpants stared back at her.

"Crookshanks?"

She listened for a second but couldn't hear the ringing bell on the collar of her fat orange cat. That was strange. Usually she came up to Erin as soon as she had opened the door.

"Crookshanks?" Erin called again, slightly less confidently. Total silence.

"Crooky?"

A shiver ran up her spine. Something was very wrong. She glanced to her bedroom door, leading to the main room and walked towards it slowly. Her heart was thumping in her chest. Had they found her again, after all this time? Had HYDRA come back to get what they had failed to originally?

There was a very distinct sensation that she wasn't alone in the house.

The first though on her head was to call 911, but that would require a phone... and her phone was currently in her rucksack, which was currently on her sofa. Damn. There was only one other option.

She walked very slowly over to her bed and picked out the medium sized baseball bat that she kept underneath it. A girl could never be too careful.

The bat was heavy in her hands, but she held it tightly regardless, walking towards the main room with a sense of dread. She entered the dark room and moved slowly to a light switch on the wall, blasting the room in light.

There was a man on her couch.

A man with a thick scar on his forehead, blood matted into his long brown hair. A man with Crookshanks, the little traitor, sat peacefully in his lap like she was sitting on a goddamn throne.

A man that Erin knew all too well.

Her heart jumped to her throat and she took a step backwards, raising the bat higher.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

He raised his eyes to her in confusion. It was almost as if he had only just noticed the lights had been switched on. She didn't let him answer her question, instead deciding on a whim to throw the baseball bat at his face with as much force as she could muster. If she was going down, she was bloody well going to go down fighting.

He raised his hand immediately, catching the bat with a metal fist. The sudden movement caused Crookshanks to jump slightly and pad away, affronted. The man looked at the bat, then down at his cat-less lap and finally to Erin.

She didn't understand what was happening. If he was here to re-capture her, as she assumed, why was he just sitting there looking lost? He seemed to be in an almost dream-like state.

"You have four seconds to speak, Optimus, or I'm yelling so loud the entire block will hear me."

His eyebrow quirked at the nickname in confusion as if he had no idea what she was talking about. He shuffled in his place slightly.

"Does 'Jefferson' live here?" A thick New York accent.

The question took her by surprise and she took a step backwards, confusion on her face.

"What?"

"I'm lookin' for someone called _'Jefferson'_. Is this the right house?"

His voice cracked partway through the sentence. It was rough, unused.

Erin breathed heavily, her eyes flicking from him to the door of her flat. She was calculating if she would be able to run out in time before he caught up with her, but her odds didn't look great.

"I'm Jefferson." She finally said. Of course she was Jefferson. The guy had stood by whilst she got the shit beaten out of her for four whole days. He had saved her life. Why was he acting like he didn't even know her?

Oh. Her eyebrows raised as she comprehended what had happened.

They had wiped him. Pine and the rest of HYDRA must have removed his memories. She took a closer look at his face. He had let his beard grow slightly, a thin layer of stubble covering his chin, and the guy looked like he hadn't slept in a month. There was certainly a big difference between now and the last time he had been in her house, when he had pinned her to the wall and shoved a chloroform rag over her nose.

" _You're_ Jefferson?" his voice was confused, "I thought you'd be a man. Jefferson is a man's name."

Erin's eyebrow raised.

"It's a surname. My... my name is Erin."

She was pretty sure she had gone into shock. That was probably the reason why she wasn't running. The reason why she was stood here, having a conversation with an assassin who had been stroking her cat ten seconds ago.

"Erin." He tested out her name on his lips, his face confused.

He moved to stand up but stopped immediately when he saw her take a step backwards, closer to the wall behind her. Instead of moving from his seat, he reached into his backpack, which she hadn't noticed up until now. It was plain and black, heavy with contents. He pulled out a small notepad and held it out to her, a peace offering.

She took a wary step forward and snatched the book off him, returning to a safe distance and opening it up.

And there she was, on the first page.

It was scribbled in hasty handwriting, messy and blotched, but there it was. Her address, the name 'Jefferson' and a single word, triple underlined.

 _'Memories?'_

She looked up at him in shock, and he nodded his head at her, his blue eyes sparkling.

"I think that you can help me."

* * *

YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THERE WE GO please leave a review/ favourite if you like it! And this story has nearly 200 followers holy crap thank you so much aha!


	18. Part Two: two

**IM BACK! Hope you enjoy this chapter**

"I think that you can help me."

The Soldier's eyes were trained on the small woman in front of him, who was looking from him to the book to the door with such frequency he was surprised she wasn't giving herself a headache. So this was 'Jefferson'. He had to admit, she wasn't anything like he had been expecting. The name 'Jefferson' had struck an image in his mind of an older man, a stereotypical scientist or psychologist, a person he could trust to get his memories back.

Certainly not a 5'3" woman with an unruly bush of blonde hair, eyes the colour of tree-bark and, he raised a single eyebrow, no pants. In the light of the room, he could see a strange pattern on the bare skin of her toned legs. A cross-hatch of healing scars, each varying levels of thickness and length, ran from her knees to the top of her thighs, which were covered by the hem on her black sleep shirt. She looked like she had been in a car accident of some sort. He glanced back up at her and realised that she had noticed him staring. She shuffled uncomfortably and held the small notebook up, trying to remove the focus from her legs.

"When did you write this?" She asked him, her voice clear.

He glanced up at her through thick lashes and shrugged his shoulders, rubbing his jaw with his metal hand, wincing slightly at the scratching burn. He needed a shave but unsurprisingly that was the last thing on his mind at the moment.

"I can't remember. There's a lot of stuff I can't remember writing in there."

She raised an eyebrow at his admission and began to flick through the notebook, looking at its contents intently. Something in the Soldier clicked. He shot up from the couch and snatched the book out of her hands, looking down at her with an expression of fury, his metal fist clenched tightly by his side. He heard her breath catch in her throat at the unexpected movement. His heart was beating fast, he was a lot closer to her than he had meant to be, his chest inches from hers. He came to his senses and took a step back and saw her body visibly relax as he moved away.

"Sorry," He muttered, his voice low, slightly embarrassed with his extreme reaction. "It's private." There were things in that book that he didn't want to know _himself_ , let alone letting a random girl he'd just met read them.

Jefferson exhaled a long sigh and raised an eyebrow.

"So you need my help?"

The Soldier nodded at her and placed the notebook carefully back in his backpack, next to countless others. His memories had been wiped but occasionally things would come back to him. When they did he would jot them down in one of his notebooks.

He could fill a library with the atrocities buried in his subconscious.

"I found that written in my notebook. A few days after the last time I got wiped." He admitted, not meeting her eyes. His body was tense. "D'you know what it means? D'you understand it?" He asked.

She nodded her head, her eyes travelling to his backpack then back to him. They weren't just brown, they were a _deep_ brown, so dark they were almost black.

"Yes. I think so."

He let out a long sigh that he didn't realise he had been holding in and he felt his whole body finally relax with the sensation. She knew what she was doing. This hadn't all been for nothing. He was going to remember again, finally. He had been nameless for too long.

He glanced back up at her and quirked an eyebrow. She was looking at him with a strange expression on her face. A mixture of pity and disbelief that went straight to his gut. There was something that she wasn't telling him.

"What's wrong?" He asked, his voice hard. She let out a burst of air from her nose and looked at him with confusion.

"Do you really not remember me?"

That wasn't something that he had expected. Had he known her? He couldn't place her face in his memories, couldn't remember seeing her before.

"We knew each other?" His voice was low. So this was another person that HYDRA had taken from him.

She snorted out a laugh.

"You could say that."

"Yours ain't a face I think I'd forget, Jefferson." He said it before he could stop himself. Her eyebrows raised and it _may_ just have been the lighting but he could swear that there was a slight dapple of a blush on her cheeks.

"Well, we weren't exactly _friends_ , Optimus."

His face twisted in confusion at the nickname. Erin saw his expression and shook her head, preventing him from asking the question.

"Long story."

"When did we meet?" He was curious. She was still alive, so obviously hadn't been a mission of his. He never failed in a mission. If HYDRA wanted her dead, she would have been by now. So what was she to him?

She licked her lips, a tiny pink tongue darting out to wet them nervously. For some reason, he found himself staring.

"You chloroformed me in this kitchen. Do you not remember?" Her accent was strange. Broader than the English accents that he had heard in the past. She clipped off her 'T's, lengthening the vowels in a way that made her voice seem almost… _homely_.

His eyebrows raised in shock. Had she been his mission? A tiny little British girl with more courage than sense. She had thrown a bat at him a few minutes ago, he wondered to himself what she had done the least time they had met.

"I don't remember…"

"I tried to fight you off with a purple spatula." She admitted and the Soldier surprised _himself_ when a small snort of laughter escaped his own throat. It has been a long time since he had laughed.

"I was working on a chemical compound. A serum that could control a person's ability to lie. I called it MFCTS."

The Soldier sat up higher in his seat, interested at the turn the conversation had taken.

"Is that even _possible_?"

The corner of her mouth quirked up into a small smirk.

"The serum is basically a fake neurotransmitter that has the same shape as a neurotransmitter that binds to neurones in the white matter of the prefrontal cortex. It blocks the synapse, preventing the signal from passing through it. Everything in your brain is connected by white matter, and by blocking the part of the white matter that controls deception and lying, I can make it impossible for someone to fabricate the truth to me."

"Shit." His response wasn't quite as eloquent as her explanation, he guessed. "That's impressive."

"Well obviously HYDRA thought so, as well." She leant back on the kitchen counter, pushing her hips forwards and crossing her arms over her chest. The Soldier noticed that her body language was still tense, her shoulders not quite relaxed.

"They brought me in for questioning." She snorted a humourless laugh. "Well, I use the term 'questioning' loosely."

He raised an eyebrow, his eyes flicking towards the crosshatch of scars on her legs. She noticed him staring.

"Yeah, Pine was kind enough to give me a lasting memory of him."

The Soldier sat up straight, his heart beating fast. He knew that name.

"Pine? As in _Colonel_ Pine?"

Erin nodded absent-mindedly, picking at a scab with her fingers. "He's very skilled with a kni-"

She looked up in shock, what he had said before registering with her.

"You _remember_ him?"

The Soldier nodded his head at her, before pushing his hair out of his eyes with a metal hand. He remembered Pine, alright. The man had been there when he had come out of ice last, he had given him the instruction to kill Nick Fury. It made sense that this man was also the reason that Erin's legs looked the way that they did. Pine didn't seem like the kind of man to go easy on someone when they stood in the way of him getting what he wanted.

"Scar on his face?"

The corner of Erin's mouth twitched up into a smile.

"Yep." She replied, "My plan is to give him another the next time I see him."

The man raised an eyebrow at the surprising steel in Jefferson's voice. He hadn't expected someone so small to come out with a statement so violent.

"So how are you supposed to get my memories back?" He pushed, eager to find out, "Is it something to do with this serum you created?"

Erin licked her lips again and nodded her head, her blonde ponytail bouncing at the sudden movement.

"In theory, if I give you the serum and ask you a question, you'd have no option but to answer it truthfully."

"So if you asked me my name or my date of birth…?"

"Exactly." Erin answered, "You can find out who you are. But there's a problem."

The Soldier's heart dropped. Of course there was a problem, there was no way that regaining his identity could possibly be this easy.

"What is it?" He asked. He felt a light pressure on the side of his left thigh, and he looked down, confused, to see the fat orange cat nosing his leg in interest. A small smile crept up the corner of his mouth as he buried his hand in the cat's fur, massaging its skin. It let out a contented purr and leant its head on his leg, the dead weight a strange but not uncomfortable sensation. Erin seemed to not have noticed how friendly her unexpected guest was getting with her pet and was instead talking animatedly, gesturing with her hands as she spoke.

"I have no funding. There's no way the University will back a project of this calibre and with S.H.I.E.L.D down, I've lost my lab."

The Soldier raised an eyebrow.

"Can't you just make it here?" He asked, not understanding the problem. If the girl knew how to make this serum, what was stopping her from just systhesising some in her kitchen?

She snorted out a laugh.

"Unless you have a centrifuge and a bottle of phenylamine in that backpack of yours that's very unlikely. I don't have the equipment here to be able to make anything more complicated than a lasagne."

He let out an irritated sigh, his hand still buried in the neck fur of the cat. He hadn't come all this way just to find out that it was a dead end.

There was a loud knock on the door, which caused both of them to jump. The Soldier's hand automatically reached for the sharp dagger on his belt, but Erin merely scrunched up her face in annoyance.

"Shit." She muttered, running back into her bedroom. There was a quiet bang and a few muffled curse words before she ran back out, thankfully wearing a long pair of black trousers. She gave the Soldier a look and mouthed 'keep quiet' at him, before walking up to the front door and opening it slightly.

"Dav! Hi!" She said, her voice completely changing from anxious worry to friendly greeting in a matter of milliseconds. The Soldier heard a low man's voice from outside the door.

"Erin, you look great! Are you ready to go?"

"Dav," Erin started, and the Soldier could hear the apology in her voice before she even said the second part of her sentence, "Could we possibly take a rain check?"

"What?"

Erin let out a sigh.

"I'm so sorry. Something's come up all of a sudden and I really need to sort it out."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" The man asked Erin. The Soldier was tense. It would be all-too-easy for Erin to alert the man to his presence and he would lose any chance he had of getting himself back. To his surprise, she shook her head, a smile on her face.

"Not really. I'm so sorry. I was really looking forwards to tonight, but could we possibly do it some other time?"

The man's voice seemed slightly disappointed when he answered with a "Sure, no problem!", but the Soldier kept quiet as Erin closed the door behind her and leant against it, one hand on her forehead. She let out a deep sigh.

"Was that your date?" The man asked from his position on the couch, the cat having forgoed its position on his leg and preferring to sit in his lap instead, leaving orange hairs in its wake.

"Something like that." She muttered, standing back up and walking towards the couch once more. She perched herself on the kitchen counter, her black trousers hiding the scars that he knew littered her legs. She seemed far more comfortable now that they weren't on show.

"He's a friend from work, he's part of the medical department at the University."

The Soldier nodded, absent-mindedly threading his fingers through the short fur of the cat, whose purring was sending vibrations resonating through his legs. He froze, and his eyes snapped upwards, looking intently at Erin.

"The University. You work at the University?"

She nodded, "Yeah. I teach biochemistry."

"You have keys?" He asked, leaning forwards slightly. He had an idea.

"Yes. Of course I have keys, I work there."

"Keys for a lab?"

"Ye-." She stopped half-way through the word. Her eyes lighting up. "Are you suggesting what I think that you're suggesting?"

He let out a rare smile and Erin blinked in surprise, taken aback by it.

"It's Saturday tomorrow. No lessons." The Soldier said, his heart racing slightly. Maybe all wasn't as lost as he had assumed.

"A quiet lab…"

"…Where you can make the serum."

"Optimus, this is illegal. Like, super illegal." Erin said to him, jumping down off the counter and walking towards him, sitting beside him on the couch. There was half a metre of space between the two of them, but somehow, the Soldier was still slightly uncomfortable with the proximity. The cat noticed Erin's proximity and padded over from him to her, curling up on her lap and purring contentedly.

"Erin. You know what I am. You know what I do. I've done things that are much more illegal than breaking into a laboratory."

She pursed her lips slightly and looked over at him, her deep brown eyes connecting with his baby blues. He could see the answer in her face even before she said it.

"Let's do it."

 **HOPE YOU ENJOYED! IT'S ABOUT TO GE PLEASE LEAVE A REVEIW IF YOU LIKED IT X X**


	19. Part Two: three

_"Please, I can give you money? I'm a rich man, I have money."_

 _The Soldier regarded the crumpled figure on the ground with distaste. He was around forty, his greying hair combed back sharply behind his ears. The middle-aged flab caused by the lifestyle of the rich hung heavily around his middle. The shirt he was wearing_ had _been white. Now the colour was closer to red. The Soldier took another step forwards._

 _"Not money?" The man's voice got more panicked, squeaking slightly, "Okay, how about women? You like women?"_

 _The Soldier stopped walking and the man's eyes lit up. He pushed himself into a sitting position, groaning slightly as he manoeuvred himself around the three new broken ribs that he had been given only minutes earlier. His gleaming eyes sparkled in his fat face._

 _"Women? I run an operation, I can give you the best women from all around the world. India? China? Japan? Whatever you want."_

 _The Soldier pulled his gun from his belt, relishing at the familiar weight of the cold metal in his hand and the man let out a small cry from the back of his throat._

 _"Or men? I can give you men if that's what you prefer? There's a boy who's just turned 19, Mongolian. I'll give him to you for free if you let me go."_

 _The Soldier ignored the man's babbling, raising the gun up to point directly between his eyes. His finger tightened on the trigger. The man brought his hands up as if that would possibly stop the velocity of a travelling bullet. He peeked out from behind his fingers. The Soldier nearly snorted to himself. Pathetic._

 _"Or even something younger?"_

 _The Soldier stopped in his tracks and he saw the old man smile, take a breath. He thought he was safe._

 _"She's 11. My boys picked her up somewhere off the coast of Vietnam. I can give her to you if you leave. I'll even throw in a few of her friends."_

 _The Soldier raised his gun and pulled the trigger, the bullet shooting through the soft skin of the man's stomach, straight through his kidney. He let out a strangled groan and the Soldier turned on his heel and walked away, leaving the man to bleed out on the floor. His mission was to kill Michael Holton. Granted, a bullet straight through his skull would have done the job perfectly, but there was something in the Soldier that had wanted the man to suffer before he died._

 _Some people deserved it._

The Soldier sat up like a shot, breathing heavily. He looked around himself, his heart in his throat at the unfamiliar surroundings. He whipped his head from side to side, hair flying, his hand automatically reaching to his belt where a knife resided. He didn't recognise the room, even in the darkness. Where the hell was he? It was then that he felt a small pressure on his left foot, causing him to extend it completely on impulse, sending a small furry lump flying through the air. It emitted a loud screech and landed on the counter on all fours, before turning around to give the Soldier a dirty look and padding away. A _cat_? He just drop-kicked a _cat_?

He looked down and noticed that he was sat on a small couch, dotted with pictures of gaudy roses.

Of course, he was in Jefferson's house. He took a deep breath inwards and glanced towards her bedroom door, which was shut tight. He had asked her last night to lock it, he still wasn't in a situation where he could trust himself. He reached down beside the bed and pulled out his backpack, unzipping it and lifting out a small notebook. He flicked through it to the first clean page and, removing a pen from the front pocket of the bag, jotted down the name 'Michael Holton'. The name didn't ring a bell, but the Soldier was certain that the dream was a memory. A vivid one. He ran his hand through his hair and stood up, pouring himself a glass of water and sipping on it pensively.

He downed the remainder of the drink in one last swig and went to sit back on the couch. There was a clock on the wall above the sink. Half past four.

The Soldier didn't reckon he'd be sleeping much for the rest of the night.

* * *

Erin was woken by her alarm at eight O'Clock exactly. She stumbled out of bed and hopped into her shower, spending slightly longer in than usual before towel drying her hair and slipping into a pair of skinny jeans and a tank top. There was a small sense of unease in her gut, but she pushed it away as she set about blow-drying her hair and tying it up behind her head in a messy ponytail. It was only when she went to open her bedroom door and found out that it was locked that she remembered.

"Shit." She muttered to herself. Optimus had stayed the night. She'd let him sleep on her couch.

She still wasn't entirely sure if she could trust him. She wouldn't put it past HYDRA to come up with a scheme this complex and messed-up just to get what they wanted. Of course, there was the look on Optimus' eyes when she had seen him last night. Completely lost.

That wasn't the kind of look a guy could make up.

She braced herself and unlocked the door, sliding the metal bolt sideways, like that would have stopped him, and pushed it forwards, stepping into the light of her main room.

He was awake, lying on her couch with his feet hanging over the edge, Crookshanks curled up on his stomach asleep. He glanced up under long dark lashes as she walked in and gave her a nod of recognition, not wanting to startle the cat out of its place. Erin gave him a tight-lipped smile and walked over to her cupboards, where she pulled down a box of cereal.

"You want breakfast?" She asked, holding up the box as an offering. The guy didn't look as if he'd eaten in days, the least that she could do was give him some Cap'n Crunch. He raised an eyebrow but shook his head, a small smile on his mouth.

"I figure I should lead myself back into normal life steadily. If I ate something that sweet I'd probably barf it back up on your carpet."

She raised her eyebrows at his admission. It wasn't that he looked skinny, quite the opposite. She could tell that under his red shirt he packed a solid bit of muscle, but there was a gaunt drawn look to his face that reminded her of the kids she used to teach in Manchester. She taught in high schools where many of the children came from broken families. She knew that look well.

It wasn't food the Soldier was starved from, it was compassion.

Erin hopped up onto the counter, eating the cereal straight from the box, looking at the Soldier intently. They had a plan for today. Sneak into the University and cook up a batch of M.F.C.T.S in one of the Chemistry labs, and then get back to her flat in time to test it on the Soldier. He was about to finally found out who he was.

"What time should we go in today?" Erin asked through a mouthful of cereal. The Soldier gently moved the cat off his lap and sat up, pushing his hair back from his face. He did that an awful lot, Erin noticed. Maybe he needed a haircut. She decided against the idea almost instantly. He looked so wound-up that she reckoned anybody who got within three feet of him with a pair of scissors would get a metal fist to the face.

"I was thinking around midday," He said, his voice low, "When do the cleaners come in?"

"They usually turn up about three."

He nodded, "How long'll it take you to make that serum?"

"I could do it in two hours at a push."

That was a lie. Erin had never been able to make the serum in faster than three hours, but she was sure that with the fear of arrest looming over her head, she would probably be a lot quicker. The corner of the Soldier's mouth quirked up into another little smile. It was incredible how the small hint of humanity completely changed his face from that of a stone cold killer to a man who seemed nearly _friendly_. She'd almost believe the façade if she didn't know that he could kill her in seconds if he wanted.

"Alright, so if we set off at eleven, we'll get there by twelve. Then you whip up the serum and we're out before the cleaners come in at three."

"Sounds like a plan." She smiled, "Mind if I get some work done in the meantime?"

The Soldier shook his hand, "Not at all."

Erin hopped off the counter and put the cereal back in the cupboard, before taking a seat behind her desk and pulling out her briefcase from underneath it. She lifted out a stack of papers and placed then next to her, picking out her trusty red pen and beginning to mark. Sixty papers on the function of the liver by sixty different second-year biochem students took a long time to mark, she may as well get on with it.

"Have you heard of a guy called 'Michael Holton?"

The Soldier's voice surprised Erin, and she looked at him in shock over her papers. Michael Holton? Naturally, she'd heard of Michael Holton.

"Holton industries? He was a multimillionaire, of course I've heard of Michael Holton. Someone shot him in his apartment about six years ago. Nobody found the guy who did it."

Optimus nodded silently, thinking.

"He was a philanthropist, as well," Erin continued, "Founded a bunch of children's orphanages in Vietnam, Japan, China, all sorts of places."

"He was a sex-trafficker." The Soldier muttered. Erin's eyebrows raised in shock.

" _What_?"

"Men, women, children. He sold them all to the highest bidder." The Soldier's spat out.

"How on earth do you know that?"

He looked up at Erin, his blue eyes intense.

"I think... I think I killed him."

Erin was silent for a good ten seconds. When she didn't respond, the Soldier continued talking.

"I had a dream last night. A really vivid dream. I shot that sick bastard through the stomach and let him bleed to death."

The room was silent with his admission. The Soldier looked down, not able to keep eye contact.

"He was a monster. But still... I killed him." He snorted out a humourless laugh, "I guess that makes me a monster as well."

"Hey," Erin pushed herself up from her desk and walked over to him, perching on the arm of the couch. She couldn't help but notice the way that he flinched slightly as she sat down. His head was in his hands, his elbows on his knees. That long brown hair falling over his face, shielding him from view.

Erin raised her hand, pausing for a second before placing it lightly on his back. He flinched at the contact and looked up at her, his eyes almost impossibly blue.

"You're not a monster, alright?" Erin reassured him, removing her hand and placing it on her lap, "The Winter Soldier was a monster, but you're not him."

Optimus let out a humourless snort and leant back, placing his hands behind his head.

"The two of us aren't mutually exclusive, Erin."

"I've seen the Winter Soldier." She said, "And you aren't him."

He pursed his lips and she let the corner of her mouth twitch up into a smile.

"You're not a monster."

* * *

The pair reached American University right on time, and Erin swiped them both in using her identification card with no problem.

She was riding on a high of adrenaline. This was the most illegal thing that she'd ever done besides eating a pot brownie at University when she was nineteen.

The Soldier was decidedly less pumped.

"Could you stop bouncin' up and down like a kid on Christmas, Jefferson? You're puttin' me on edge."

She snorted at him and flashed him a smile as she walked down the deserted corridors towards the Chemistry department.

"You didn't let me wear the balaclava, at least let me get excited."

There was a chuckle from behind her.

"Who wears a balaclava in the middle of the day, Erin? You may as well have written ' _I'm off to break into a building'_ on your forehead."

"They wear balaclavas in the films." Erin didn't help but notice the fact that he had called her by her first name, for the first time. That was good, he was starting to feel more comfortable around her.

"You're not in a spy film."

She didn't need to see his face to know that he was rolling his eyes.

It was weird walking around the University with nobody there. Creepy, almost. Erin had worked here for the last three months, and there were still places she hadn't seen. The Chemistry department was one of those places. She'd popped into the prep room on occasion to pick up a few chemicals for practical experiments that she had done, but it had been a long time since she had actually set foot in the _lab_. She rounded the corner, the Soldier still on her heels, and scanned her way into the room, pushing the door open.

The scent of chlorine hit her almost immediately, causing her to wrinkle her nose in distaste. Someone had been in here yesterday messing around with halides, and the whole place stank of it. She heard the Soldier let out a small huff of air behind her, and she turned to look at him, confused.

"You alright?"

She didn't fail to notice that his metal hand was clenched tightly, his face stony.

"That smell... it smells like HYDRA," he said, wrinkling his nose. Of course, the strong tang of chlorine would have been rife at a place where antiseptics were used all the time to clean up pools of blood. She gave him a stern look.

"If you want to stand outside-"

"No." He cut her off instantly, "I'm okay. I can handle it."

She nodded, and the corner of her mouth lifted up into a sly smile.

"You sure you don't want to stand guard?" she joked, "You never know who could catch us in the act."

He actually let out a smirk at that, despite the fact that his shoulders were still tense.

"We're not in a spy movie, Erin. You don't need me to 'stand guard'. The worst person that's going to come through that door is an old Hispanic cleaning lady."

"You're no fun."

Erin raised her eyebrows, humming a low tune under her breath as she got to work. Her hair was already tied up, but she managed to find a set of safety goggles in a drawer. There weren't any lab coats, so she was glad she wasn't wearing a good shirt.

"If that's the James Bond theme tune I'm going to walk right out of this lab and go find my memories somewhere else." The Soldier deadpanned from the side of the room. He was leant on the wall, his hip popped, arms crossed over his chest.

"What have you got against James Bond?" Erin asked as she added small droplets of silver nitrate into a test tube. She stopped, looking upwards at him.

"Actually, how do you know what James Bond is in the first place?"

He smirked, his eyes crinkling. It was an oddly endearing look on him.

"I've not been living under a rock. I did leave HYDRA on occasion. I got a look at the wider world. I know what James Bond is." He paused for a second, thinking, "Never seen Star Wars, though."

Erin nearly dropped the test tube she was holding.

"You've never seen _Star Wars?"_ She sounded almost affronted. The Soldier raised an eyebrow at her as she placed the tube in a centrifuge and started working on a different part of the formula.

"I was kinda too busy killing people. It gets in the way of being a cinephile."

"Fair enough."

She put a small spatula of crushed black solid into a boiling tube and heated it over a Bunsen burner, being careful to avoid the smoke that came out of the top as the solid combusted.

"Okay. First I give you back your memories, _then_ we watch Star Wars, alright?"

She picked her test tube out of the centrifuge and poured the contents into a rolled up piece of filter paper, syphoning off a white precipitate that had formed on the top, and instead taking the liquid filtrate and adding it to the burnt substance inside the boiling tube. There was a loud fizzing noise as the components mixed.

"Can you pass me that aliphatic amine?" She asked the Soldier. He looked at her blankly.

"It's right there, next to the sulphuric acid. H2SO4." She pointed to a small cupboard the Soldier was leaning against. He picked up what he thought was the right bottle and handed it to Erin.

"Is this right?"

She looked at the label on the front of it.

"Yeah. Thanks." She unstopped it and added five drops to the mixture, then placed the lid back on and handed it back to the Soldier, her fingers accidentally touching the smooth metal of his bionic hand as she did so. She didn't seem to notice the fact that he stiffened at the touch. The last time that somebody had touched his arm, they had been holding him down in a chair and pressing an electrode to his brain. This was an entirely different kind of touch, and he wasn't sure if he was comfortable with it.

He backed off slightly, and went back to his spot at the corner of the room, perching himself on the counter and watching Erin as she worked. She was so _focused,_ her eyes glued to the table-top in front of her. It was incredible to him that she knew all of these hundreds of compounds, knew how they reacted together and knew the exact way to combine them to make her serum. The Soldier had always been quick, but he had never been intelligent, not in the way that this girl was. He had street-smarts, he knew how to kill a man in 86 different ways just using a ballpoint pen, but put him in front of a mass of chemicals like this and he didn't know his arse from his elbow.

He glanced warily at the clock on the wall of the room. Half past two. Thirty minutes until the cleaning staff arrived.

"Erin can ya hurry this up a bit?" He asked, his voice tense. He had laid low for so long, he wasn't about to be spotted because some chemist couldn't mix her solutions together quick enough.

"I'll be five minutes, I just need to mix these up in a beaker, then filter them into a bottle." She muttered, a pen stuck between her teeth. Her hair was falling out of its elastic, and there were seven different test tubes lined up in front of her, each containing a substance of a different colour.

She glanced from the clock to the tubes, her eyes flicking, and she shook her head.

"Ah, fuck it."

Grabbing a large bottle, she poured the contents of each of the tubes into it, moving her head backwards to avoid the green gas that was billowing out of it. She stoppered the bottle and gave it a shake. The solution was clear, with a slight tinge of light green. She looked up at the Soldier, light in her brown eyes.

"I'm done."

He nodded and helped her clean up as best they could, and then followed her out of the lab, closing the door tightly behind him. The Soldier wasn't certain, but he could swear that she was still humming the James Bond theme tune as she jogged through the corridors. The University was a winding maze, and he would have had no hope navigating it himself, so he was lucky that Erin seemed to know where she was going. Even if she _had_ now moved on to humming 'Mission Impossible'.

The pair managed to sneak out of a side-door with relative ease. He hadn't broken a sweat, but Erin was breathing heavily her face red. She held up the bottle, a grin on her face.

"Time to find out who you really are, Winter."

* * *

 **VOTE REVIEW PLEASE I CRAVE VALIDATION Y'aLL KNOW THE DRILL**


	20. Part Two: four

**This is a super long chapter so i hope you guys like it xx as always please leave a review if you did (or if you didnt and tell me im shitty both are constructive)**

 **Bucky's POV**

The Soldier was sat on the couch again, watching intently as Erin diluted six drops of the serum into a litre of distilled water. She was completely focused, and he had the feeling that if he said something to her, she wouldn't even notice. It was the same as in the lab when she had been synthesising MFCTS and had been so engrossed in her work that she had completely forgotten about the time.

It was amazing to the Soldier how somebody could just switch off from the outside world like that. That wasn't how he was programmed. He was always on edge, always on the look-out for danger, his senses heightened. It was exhausting.

The cat was nudging his left ankle, and he smiled to himself, bending down to scratch behind its ears.

"She hates everyone, you know."

Erin's voice made him look up from the cat. She was smiling, a beaker of clear solution in her hand.

"What?"

She gestured to the cat, which had now jumped up onto the couch and was leaning its orange head against the Soldier's thigh, purring contentedly.

"Crookshanks. She tried to bite my ex-boyfriend's hand off the first time he stroked her. She pissed on my mum once as well," Erin chuckled slightly at the memory, "Why the hell is she so pally with you? It makes no sense."

The Soldier allowed his metal hand to massage the thick fur behind the cat's head and shrugged his shoulders.

"I've no idea."

She raised an eyebrow and turned back around, searching through her drawers for something. The Soldier could swear that he heard her mutter, "The cat whisperer," to herself as she looked.

Eventually, she found what she was looking for, and pulled out a small surgical syringe, still in its sterile packaging. The Soldier stiffened immediately, losing any feeling of relaxation that he had had. Erin seemed impervious to his discomfort, but he couldn't help his heart rate increasing as he watched her unwrap the needle and dip it into the beaker, drawing up the fluid. It had been a long time since someone had injected him with a needle, there was a fuzzy memory in the back of his brain. A table he was strapped to, and a small doctor with wire-rimmed spectacles. His hair had been shorter then. He quirked an eyebrow. What a weird thing to stay in his memory, the length of his hair.

"Orally or intravenously?" Erin asked him, flicking the side of the needle and watching the pale fluid come out of the top. The Soldier's answer was instant.

"Orally."

Erin raised an eyebrow at the immediate response, and the Soldier scratched his neck uncomfortably under her gaze.

"I don't like needles." That was the only explanation that he gave. For some reason, he was embarrassed by the fact, almost as if it was a weakness. He felt his body visibly relax when Erin nodded and threw the syringe into the trash can, and instead pulled a large glass from the overhead cupboard. She began to fill it with water.

"Have you got anything stronger?" There was a hint of a joke to the Soldier's voice, but he couldn't keep the shake out of it. This was really happening, he was finally going to remember after so many years of anonymity. He was just worried that he may uncover some things he would rather forget.

Erin gave him a smile, her straight white teeth gleaming from her pale face. Somehow, for a reason the Soldier didn't quite understand, it calmed him down a little bit.

"You've come to the right biochemist." She admitted, "I am my flat block's resident alcoholic cat-lady."

She poured the water back into the sink and instead reached up to pull out a large bottle of whisky from the cupboard above her, unstoppering it and pouring a small amount into the glass. She then got a dropper and added exactly seven drops of MFCTS to the amber liquid.

"Do you take ice with your experimental chemical serums?" She asked the Solider, a smile in her voice. He nodded silently and she walked over to the fridge and placed three ice cubes in the glass, before walking back to the couch and handing it to the Soldier. He took it in his metal hand, not feeling the cold. The ice cubes clinked against the side of the glass.

"All at once?" He asked, and Erin nodded.

"It would be better to just get it over with." She admitted, perching on the corner of the couch and watching the Soldier intently, "It's going to take a considerably longer time to get into your bloodstream than it would if I just injected it, you know,"

"I don't like needles," He repeated, looking down at the liquid in the bottom of the glass. He couldn't remember the last time that he had a drink, but he had a feeling that he was going to need it to cope with what was coming. He glanced up at Erin, and gave her a half-hearted smile, raising the glass.

"To your health," He joked, and tilted it upwards, wincing slightly as the burning liquid ran down his throat and pooled into his stomach, heating him up from the inside. He gave the empty glass back to Erin and wrinkled his nose. He could taste sulphur.

"Sorry about that, I should have warned you there would be a bit of an aftertaste," Erin said noticing his expression as she walked over and put the glass in the sink.

"How long will it take to work?" The Soldier asked, his heart pumping with the adrenaline of the situation.

"Maybe half an hour, maybe longer. I've never given it to a human orally before." She admitted, causing the Soldier to raise an eyebrow. She'd never tested it this way on human's before? That was a worry. He didn't really like the idea of being someone's guinea pig.

"Also," Erin continued, walking into her bedroom and coming out holding a large plastic bag, "I got you some clothes. I figured you couldn't keep wearing that same shirt."

The Soldier stared at her, blank-eyed. She had _bought_ them for him? She barely even knew him. It made no sense to him that she would go out of her way in order to make him more comfortable.

"Also, that shirt has blood on it." She continued, throwing the bag at him. He brought his hand up and caught it instantly, the sudden movement causing the cat that had by that point managed to sneak the whole way onto his lap to leap up and pad away. He opened it up and took a look inside. A few pairs of black jeans, some cotton T-shirts and a pack of boxer briefs.

"You can take a shower if you want," She said offhand as she sat down at her desk and pulled out a mound of papers, "I have some marking to do, that serum is going to take a while to reach your brain and, well... I think you have blood matted in your hair."

His hand raised to his head and she let out a laugh.

"I'm kidding about the blood. You _should_ have a shower, though, I can smell you from here."

He rolled his eyes at that and stood up, plastic bag in hand.

"Where is your shower?" He asked, looking around. The layout of her small flat was still unfamiliar to him.

"Through my room, on your left," she muttered, not looking directly at him, instead focusing completely on the papers in front of her, which she was marking furiously with a red pen.

"Through... your room?"

She stopped writing and looked up.

"Uh huh."

Okay, so she wanted him to go into her room. That was a level of trust that the Soldier wasn't expecting. He nodded and grabbed the bag tightly, walking through the room to the door of Erin's bedroom whilst she got back to her work. He took a step inside.

The first thing he noticed was the mess. It was an absolute state, the bed was unmade, half-read books littered the floor and he felt his face flush as he noticed that a black lacy bra and a pair of panties were crumpled up in the corner. How could somebody so intelligent be so messy? He glanced back to see if she was still working, and noticing that she was, he walked towards her nightstand instead of towards the bathroom. He wanted to learn more about the girl who was helping him find himself.

There was a photo propped up on the stand inside a silver frame. The Soldier felt a smile creep up the side of his face as he took it in. It was a graduation photo, and Erin stood in the centre of it, dressed formally in a black gown and cap, holding onto her degree paper so tightly that she was bending the sides of it and smiling like her mouth was about to split open. On her right was an older woman with streaks of grey running through her blonde hair. Erin's mother. On her left was a younger man, about twenty-five. He was much taller than Erin and had one arm casually draped across her shoulder. He was handsome, his blond hair hanging in messy curls from his head.

There was a book next to it, a well-read copy of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. The Soldier picked it up and flicked through it, noticing that Erin had annotated sections of the novel in light pencil. He smiled to himself. Turning his back on the bed he walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

There was a mirror fixed to the wall, and he stared into it. A man he hardly knew stared back. He looked terrible, he could admit that to himself. There were bags under his light blue eyes and the ghost of a week's worth of stubble on his jaw. A large cut on his forehead was beginning to heal but still looked nasty. He pursed his lips and tore his eyes away from the mirror, there was no need to make himself feel any worse than he already did.

He peeled off his shirt, wincing slightly as it stuck to a small gash on his stomach, the dried blood acting as an adhesive. He stepped out of his boots and shoes, before removing his trousers and turning on the water, revelling in the feeling of three week's worth of mud and blood being washed from his skin. He stayed in for slightly longer than necessary, making sure that every last trace of dirt had gone from his body before getting out and stepping into the clothes that Erin had bought for him. The jeans were slightly too big, hanging low on his hips. The shirts, on the other hand, were much too small. He wasn't a big guy, but through the years, he had developed tone and muscle definition that certainly made him slightly more bulky than the average man. He looked through all the shirts, pursing his lips in annoyance when he found out that they were all the same size.

There was only one thing he could do.

He slipped his feet back into his boots and threw the rest of his dirty clothes in the bin, there was no saving them, before grabbing the bag and heading out to Erin. She was still sat at her desk, writing furiously.

"Um, Jefferson?"

She looked up from her work and he saw her eyebrows visibly raise as she took in his state of undress. Her eyes flicked from his bare chest, which was still slightly wet from his shower, to his shoulder, where his metal arm had been fused to the skin. There was an angry red line between the monster and the man.

"I... um. The shirts you got were a bit too small." He said, ignoring the blush that he was sure was creeping up his face.

Erin blinked twice, before rubbing her forehead with her hand.

"Shit. I'm sorry, I just picked up the first ones I could find. I think that there's one of my ex's sweaters still in my wardrobe. He was about the same size as you."

The Soldier nodded and turned around, walking back into her bedroom. He could feel her eyes on his back. He searched through the wardrobe for a second, slightly amused by the number of grey sweatpants and graphic t-shirts, before pulling out a thin black sweatshirt that looked like it would fit him. He shrugged it on and zipped it up to his sternum, before walking back out to Erin. She had moved from her position behind the desk and was now sat on the couch, a pad of paper in her hand. He sauntered back into the room and she smiled at him.

"Have a seat, Soldier."

He tried and failed to hide a smile and went to sit next to her, making sure that there was at least half a metre of space between them. He hair was still wet, and he could feel it soaking into the hood of the sweatshirt.

"Alright, I'm just going to go straight in for it," She said, bringing the pen up to the notepaper, "I'm gonna do a control first to see if it's working, okay?"

The Soldier nodded.

"All you have to do is lie to this question. I'll ask you a question, and you just need to lie to it," she explained. Sounded easy enough.

He nodded again, staying silent. He could feel his pulse raising.

"What's my name?"

Erin Jefferson. He knew her name, of course he did, But he had to lie. He struggled in his mind to think of a different name, but the only thing going through his mind was 'Erin Jefferson, Erin Jefferson, Erin Jefferson' like a mantra. It was overwhelming. He felt himself let out a small noise of confusion from the back of his throat, before the words 'Erin Jefferson' came spilling out of his mouth before he could stop them. The mantra died down, and he was left with his ears ringing, breathing heavily.

"Shit," he muttered under his breath as his breathing returned to normal. That was insane, the way that he wasn't able to control his own mind. It scared him a little.

He looked up at Erin and she nodded, a small smile on the corner of her lips.

"Okay, we're in business," she said, jotting a small note on the paper, "What do you want to know first?"

"My name." The answer was instant.

Erin nodded, her brown eyes sparkling with excitement.

"What is your name?" She enunciated the question perfectly, making sure that there was no room for confusion.

The Soldier gasped in a deep breath as his vision blurred. He could hear voices in his head, not his own, but the voice of someone else. A woman. She was yelling something, but the Soldier couldn't decipher it. It was like he was trying to hear it through water. The image of a skinny boy flashed across his mind for a second and was gone instantly leaving him to wonder if it had really been there at all. The voice was still calling him but was getting slightly clearer now. Clear enough that he could make out a Brooklyn accent. He felt like he couldn't breathe, but the voice still got louder, ringing in his ears, yelling at him. His name, he realised. James Barnes.

"James Barnes." He gasped for breath as he said the words, his heart pounding. The man had disappeared, as had the voice of the woman. His mother, perhaps? He looked up under his lashes to see Erin, writing furiously.

"So did you friends call you James? Jamie? Jim?" She asked, unaware of the fact that he was still fighting for breath. The skinny man flashed across his vision again, but this time looked different. Bigger, almost. His face had filled out, and he was smiling. A single word floated on the Soldier's periphery, just out of reach. His clenched his fist to stop his hand from shaking. The word became more pronounced, said by so many different voices. The slightly annoyed voice of the first lady, his mom, the smiling voice of the man, the breathy gasp of a girl whose name he couldn't remember. One word over and over again.

"Bucky."

His shoulders relaxed as soon as the word exited his mouth. Bucky. Bucky Barnes. Of course his name was Bucky Barnes, how could he have ever forgotten that? His face and palm were covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and he was breathing heavily, but there was a smile that stretched the whole way across his face.

He saw Erin nod.

"Bucky?" She asked, her brown eyes looking deep into his. He didn't know when it had happened, but they had moved closer together on the couch, so not his thigh was touching hers. Even through the two layers of fabric he could feel the warmth radiating off her.

"Bucky." He let out a laugh unexpectedly at the sound of her using his name. It had been so long.

She grinned, actually _grinned_ at him, then noticed the fact that his hands were shaking.

"Are you alright, do you want to carry on with this?"

"Yes." His answer was instant, almost drawn out of him unwillingly. That must be the serum. It was almost addictive for him, getting back these memories, remembering who he used to be. He could get high off this.

Erin nodded, biting her bottom lip as she thought.

"Okay, what else do you want to know?"

"My friends, family."

"Alrighty," Erin shuffled slightly in her position, rubbing her thigh against his inadvertently, causing a bolt of electricity to run up his back. It had been a long time since somebody had touched him, especially _there_. Erin completely ignored their proximity, too fired up by her experiment.

"Who was your best friend?"

Bucky leant his head back as the voices returned again. Just one voice, this time. A man's voice saying 'Bucky, Bucky, Bucky,' over and over again. A flash of a handsome face with a mop of blonde hair, impossibly skinny, but also much taller, his shoulders broad. His best friend. Bucky's best friend.

"Steve." He answered with absolute clarity, "Steve Rogers."

Erin raised an eyebrow.

"Steve Rogers like-"

Bucky nodded, "Captain America Steve Rogers, uh huh."

An amused burst of laughter came out of Erin's nose before she could help herself.

"You have famous friends, Bucky. Okay, what about a girlfriend? Did you have one of those?"

Ah, girlfriends. As soon as Erin asked the question, Bucky's mind filled with images and names, more than he could count. Breathy gasps and secret whispers, innumerable amounts of eyes boring into his. Hot steamy nights and awkward mornings, sneaking around behind bike-sheds to steal kisses, sometimes much more. Dot. Cheryl. Masie. Jessica. Beatrice. Jolene. Katie.

"I had a load of girlfriends," He admitted eventually, "They just never stuck around for long."

Erin nodded in understanding, before standing up from her seat and placing her pad of paper on the kitchen counter. Bucky looked up at her in confusion.

"Wait? Are we not carrying on with this?"

"Bucky you're as pale as a sheet, and you're shaking. I'm gonna get you a glass of water and we can carry this on in the morning. You need rest."

He looked up at the clock, shocked when he noticed that it was nearly midnight. Erin was right, he guessed, he needed sleep. Especially after what had just happened. He felt cold, but his body was covered in a thin sheen of sweat. He took the glass of water from Erin without question and gulped it down, the cold liquid helping to soothe his dry throat. She nodded at him and walked towards her room.

"Lock the door again, tonight." he blurted out before she closed it. She turned around to him, confusion on her face.

"I'm still not sure if... if I'm safe." He admitted, "I'd feel better knowing that I can't hurt you."

She didn't say anything at his admission, just nodded silently before turning to go once more. She stopped at the last second and turned around again.

"Bucky?"

He looked up. He was never going to get tired of hearing people call him that.

"Yeah?"

She bit her lip and pushed her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. She looked almost uncomfortable.

"Do you really not remember me?" The question was out before she could stop herself. The serum was still in his body, and he gasped when she asked the question, images and thoughts flowing through his mind like paint through water. He could hear her voice in his head, all those months ago, joking with him in a way that nobody else had. He couldn't make out the words, but her accent was unmistakable. And again and again, the same image flashed through his subconscious, over and over again, those deep brown eyes that could stop a man dead in his tracks just by looking at them. He looked up at her, his mouth forming the words almost without his knowledge.

"I remember your eyes."

 **OH MY GOD FINALLY I CAN ACTUALLY CALL BUCKY BUCKY INSTEAD OF 'THE SOLDIER' BECAUSE THAT WAS EXHAUSTING LET ME TELL U as always please leave a reveiw if you liked this**


	21. Part Two: five

**OKAY, I WAS LISTENING TO THE WHOLE HAMILTON SOUNDTRACK WHILST WRITING THIS SO IM SORRY IF I ACCIDENTALLY WRITE ELIZA INSTEAD OF ERIN**

* * *

 _Erin was running, her broken arm slapping painfully against her chest in the pathetic excuse for a sling that it had unceremoniously been wrapped in. She didn't know how far Pine was behind her, but she wasn't waiting to find out. Her bare feet ached as they slapped against the hard linoleum floor, but she didn't stop, pelting through corridor after corridor in an attempt to find an exit. The lights above her head flickered as she ran, basking the HYDRA base in an eerie shadow. She came to a halt, lungs burning as she took in gasping breaths, her legs on fire. Erin knew she had to keep running. She knew that she would die otherwise, but surely a few seconds of rest wouldn't hurt?_

 _She bent double, her face sticky with sweat, and her heart lurched when she felt a sudden movement under her feet. She stood up straight in shock, looking down at the floor in horror as it twisted and mutated underneath her, unbalancing her and causing her to fall to her knees. The floor continued to twist under the too-bright lights of the corridor, moving under her like water, falling away from beneath her feet in large chunks until she was left hanging for dear life, her fingers grasping what had once been the floor whilst her legs kicked helplessly into deep empty space beneath her._

 _A silhouette walked up to her, tall and menacing until he stood above her, looking down with an expression of confusion on his handsome face, his blue eyes unsure._

 _The Soldier._

 _"Help me," Erin huffed out the words in a single breath, her fingers aching as she grasped what remained of the floor with all her strength, trying desperately to pull herself back up. The Soldier looked down at her for a few seconds before reaching behind him and pulling something from the waistband of his black cargo pants. A glint of metal flashed across her vision before the barrel of a semi-automatic pistol was pointed directly between her eyes._

 _"Please," Her fingers began to slip and her gut lurched with vertigo as she looked down at the unending chasm below her. Pine was forgotten. It was him and her, looking each other in the eyes, not blinking._

 _The Soldier averted his eyes and fired the gun._

"NO!"

Erin woke with a start, breathing heavily, her short summer pyjamas and sheets soaked with sweat. She glanced over to the small clock on her bedside table, half three in the morning, and rubbed her face with a shaky hand. The same dream, every time. The back of her throat was dry, and she pulled her duvet off her sticky body and stood up on shaky legs, walking towards her bedroom door. She needed a drink, though whether water or alcohol she hadn't decided yet.

Always the same dream, every night. The Soldier would appear to help her, before placing a bullet in her skull.

 _Bucky._ She reminded herself, he wasn't 'The Soldier' anymore. He had a name.

She unlocked the door and opened it slowly, trying not to make a noise and wake the sleeping lump of muscle and metal on her couch. She walked over to her sink, tiptoeing as quietly as she could, and pulled out a small glass from a cupboard, before turning around on a whim to look at the sleeping form of Bucky.

The room was dark, lit only by a faint hint of moonlight coming in through the window, illuminating his unconscious body. He was lying on his back, his legs slightly too long for the couch, falling off the end. His metal arm was hanging off the side, grazing the floor, whilst his right was tucked behind his head. He looked different when he was sleeping, Erin noticed. The constant lines of worry on his face when he was awake smoothed out, making him look almost... _peaceful_. He looked considerably better after yesterday's shower, now he no longer had blood covering his hair and face.

Erin tilted her head to the side, still holding the empty glass in her hand. He was handsome, she noted. Perhaps not in a classically 'George Clooney' way, but he had a strong jawline and the kind of face that almost begged for trust. And then there were those _eyes_ , such a light blue. They juxtaposed so much about him. He had been through so much terror, seen so much anger and horror, and yet his eyes remained as light as the sky.

She noticed that he had removed the sweatshirt she had lent him sometime during the night, tossing it carelessly over the back of the couch. She pursed her lips in distaste as she got a slightly better look at the angry looking line of red scar tissue that connected that monstrosity of a metal arm to his torso. It had been messily done. The rest of his torso was bare, almost glowing slightly in the moonlight. She had been right in her assumptions, the guy was _ripped,_ there wasn't an ounce of fat on his body. Crookshanks had curled up in the hollow of his navel and was purring contentedly, her fluffy body cocooned comfortably on Bucky's bare chest.

Erin was suddenly overcome with curiosity. This man had been through two World Wars. He had seen the rise and fall of dictators, Vietnam, Pearl Harbour, Rwanda. People had lived and died whole existences during his lifetime, and here he was, sleeping like a baby on her charity shop couch with her cat curled up on his chest. She placed the empty glass back on the side and walked up to him, her bare feet making no noise on the soft carpet.

She knew that it was stupid, but she bent down to take a closer look at his sleeping face.

A pair of shockingly blue eyes shot open.

Erin took a step backwards, her heart rising to her chest, but before she could say anything she felt metal fingers around her throat. Her eyes widened as she stepped backwards, bringing her hands up in defence but it was in vain. Bucky spun them both around, throwing her against the couch with such force that it knocked the wind out of her. She tried to stand up but was blocked by the heavy weight of him on top of her. He was straddling her, one leg on either side of her torso, and his weight was suffocating. His metal arm was at her throat again, constricting against her windpipe. She let out a strangled cry, bringing her hands up to Bucky's face, trying to push him away.

Not Bucky, she realised.

The Winter Soldier.

"Na kogo ty rabotayesh'?" His voice was as hard as a rock, speaking in a language that Erin didn't understand, "Kto yebat' ty?"

"Bucky..." she managed to croak out as his fingers constricted. His eyebrow twitched over an impossibly blue eye.

"Who's _Bucky?_ "

A shiver of ice went down Erin's spine at the tone of his voice. This wasn't the man that she had broken into a University with. This wasn't the man who had turned up to her house uninvited, begging for help.

This was the man who had kidnapped her from her apartment all those months ago.

This man was HYDRA.

Her vision blurred as his fingers tightened even more, his body weighing down on her, suffocating.

Everything went black.

* * *

Erin woke with a pounding in her head and a sore throat that felt like she'd swallowed barbed wire. She let out a groan, surprised when it came out as more of a strangled whine. Her hand raised to her throat, surprised.

"Don't try to move."

She opened her eyes, surprised by the voice. She was lying on her couch, the sunlight blasting through the open window making her squint her eyes. Bucky was stood a few metres in front of her, leaning on the kitchen counter. His face looked worried.

He wasn't wearing a shirt.

"Just rest there for a bit." There was a definite note of pain to his voice.

Erin quirked her eyebrow in confusion. She looked down at herself and was surprised to see that the sweater that she had lent Bucky last night had been draped over her. She pulled it off, leaving her in just her pyjama shirt and shorts. She saw Bucky's eyes glance at her thighs, covered in scars, and she shifted uncomfortably. Her scars weren't things that she liked people seeing.

"What's going on?" She asked, confused. Her voice came out rough, squeaky. She raised her hand to her throat once more. She noticed Bucky wince slightly at the sound.

He took a step towards her, his right hand raised, and knelt down in front of her as she sat up, his eyes hurt.

"Fuck, I'm so sorry, Erin."

Her eyebrows raised slightly at the language. It was the first time she had ever heard him swear. She looked down at him in confusion.

"What are you talking about?"

He sighed and pushed his hair back from his face, standing up and walking towards the sink. He poured Erin a glass of water and handed it to her, before perching on the corner of the couch.

"You surprised me last night. I freaked out."

Erin's tired mind begun to put together the pieces. She remembered getting up last night to get a drink, after her nightmare. She took a sip of her water, wincing slightly as she swallowed. Her throat still hurt.

"I..." he let out a deep sigh.

"You strangled me." Erin finished the sentence for him. She remembered.

He looked down at his hands, not willing to make eye contact with her.

"He's still there." Bucky's voice was so low that Erin barely heard it. She lifted her head and looked at him. He didn't look back.

"Who is?"

"The Winter Soldier," Bucky admitted. He raised his eyes to her finally, and she was shocked to see the slight glisten of tears in them, "He's always there."

"Hey," Erin said, raising her hand with the intention of placing it on his shoulder before changing her mind and letting it flop uselessly against her side, "HYDRA fucked you over, Buck. You're gonna be messed up for a while, I'm not denying that, but you aren't the Winter Soldier."

He shook his head,"I'm never gonna get rid of him, Jefferson."

The emotion in his voice surprised Erin. She'd always seen him as a rock, a sturdy constant. Seeing him broken like this came as a shock to her.

"The Winter Soldier wouldn't be beating himself up over this. You are. That proves it."

Bucky let out a sigh, and looked at Erin again. His beard was beginning to grow out, shadowing his face slightly.

"What did I do to deserve you, Jefferson?"

They sat in silence for a minute, before Erin attempted to get up, groaning slightly at the protest from her aching limbs. Bucky stood up instantly, grabbing her under the arm to help her stand. She shook him off.

"I'm not an invalid, Bucky. I can walk."

He let her go, a small smile on his face. She walked towards her bedroom.

"Okay. I'm gonna go get a shower, and we're gonna carry on this day as if we didn't start it with an impromptu bout of BDSM, alright?"

He flushed red and let out a small snort of laughter, surprising himself with the sound. Erin sure knew how to dispel awkward tension.

"Alright." He said, seeming happy to be given the chance for a fresh start.

"Do you want to watch a movie?"

Bucky's eyebrows knotted together at the unexpected question.

"Do I what?"

The corner of Erin's mouth quirked up in a smile.

"You told me you liked movies. I have a few Disneys if you want to watch one."

Bucky pondered for a second, then grinned at her. Actually grinned. She was slightly taken aback by it, the way that it transformed his whole face.

"Yeah, alright."

She nodded.

"I have 'Beauty and the Beast' on DVD. Give me twenty minutes to get cleaned up and I'll pop it on."

He raised an eyebrow and muttered something to himself.

"What?"

The corner of his lip quirked into a self-deprecating smile.

"I said, 'that's ironic'."

Erin rolled her eyes. She knew what he was thinking, of course.

"I wouldn't say you're a Beauty, Bucky. You'll have to shave that beard off, first."

He gave her an exasperated look.

"I wasn't thinking that _I_ was the beauty, Jefferson-"

"Well, I refuse to think that you're the Beast. So we're stuck at a stalemate."

She smiled conspiratorially and walked back into her room, closing the door behind her before he could respond.

It would take a considerable amount of work to get Bucky back to how he was, but she was willing to try. She picked up her mobile from her desk, typing in a number and holding it up to her ear.

"Erin?" the familiar voice of Bruce Banner echoed through the headset.

"Hey, Bruce," she smiled, "I was wondering if you could do me a favour?"

Bruce chuckled on the other end of the receiver, "You never just phone me for a chat, do you, Jefferson?"

She rolled her eyes.

"I just need to know if you have Steve Rogers' number. I need to get in contact with him."

Bruce was silent for a second.

"What do you need Rogers for?"

Erin glanced at the shut door, knowing that Bucky was on the other side, hating himself for what he had done. There were some things that she couldn't fix.

The guy needed his best friend.

"I have a situation I think he can help me with."

* * *

 **RUSSIAN TRANSLATIONS (which might not be right in sorry)**

 **Na kogo ty rabotayesh'? - Who do you work for?**

 **Kto yebat' ty? - Who the fuck are you?**

 **ALRIGHT YEAAAH PLEASE REVIEW (this isn't my best chapter but it'll get better soon I promise)** god I'm so mean to Bucky this is unacceptable


	22. Part Two: six

**Hello again! If anyone is interested, I've recently started a Kylo Ren/ OC Star Wars fic that has the potential to be pretty good, so if you're into that thing, check it out x**

* * *

There was a strange noise in the gym. A high-pitched continuous ringing that echoed through the empty room, electronic-sounding.

Steve tried to ignore it, focusing entirely on punching the same bag over and over again, getting his anger out any way that he could. Eventually he stopped, breathing heavily, and looked around, searching for the source of the sound. The mysterious ringing was coming from his bag. He walked over to it, confused, and pulled out the mobile telephone that Tony had deemed it necessary to give him.

Of course, that explained the ringing. Steve still wasn't at a point where he could identify it immediately. He looked at the screen.

 **'UNKNOWN NUMBER CALLING'**

Steve tapped the little green button and held the phone up to his ear, confused. Only a few people had this number, who could be calling him?

"Hello?"

"Steve Rogers?" A British accent came from the other end of the receiver.

"Yes..." He answered warily. This wasn't a voice he knew. The woman on the phone gave a sigh of relief at his voice.

"Steve, you may not remember me, but I was a science worker at S.H.I.E.L.D."

Steve blanched. Of course that as what this was about. He had sworn to himself to have nothing more to do with S.H.I.E.L.D.

"I'm not interested. I don't do that kind of thing anymor-"

"I don't work there anymore," The woman backpedalled, stumbling over her words, "I'm a teacher now. My name is Erin Jefferson."

Erin Jefferson. Steve had to admit, the name rang a bell.

"The girl with the truth serum?"

There was a laugh from the other end of the phone.

"Yeah. The girl with the truth serum. Bruce gave me your number, I'm sorry for calling you out of the blue like this. There something I think you can help me with."

Steve pursed his lips. He was always willing to help someone in need, but he was apprehensive about this strange woman he knew nothing about. He had a deep distrust of S.H.I.E.L.D, especially after everything that had happened. HYDRA had been infiltrating the organisation from the inside for years, turning the core of the company rotten.

"What?"

There was a pause on the other side of the line. A pause that was slightly too long to just be an intake of breath or the time taken to formulate a thought.

"Bucky is here."

Steve's eyes widened, his mouth actually hanging open in shock. Surely she didn't mean…? The last time Steve had seen Bucky had been on a helicarrier, and he had very nearly not survived the encounter. His best friend had beaten him half to death, then dragged his limp body out of the river beneath and onto dry land. Since then, Steve hadn't been able to find him, regardless of how much tracking he had done.

"Are you serious? How is he? Is he alright?" Steve barraged her with a list of questions, his gym session completely forgotten. He froze. If Bucky was alive, surely there was a chance that he could still revert back to the Winter Soldier?

"Are _you_ alright?" Steve asked warily. Erin scoffed out a laugh.

"He's currently sitting on my couch with my cat eating his way through an entire box of Reese's pieces. He's fine."

Steve let out a sigh of relief he didn't realise he'd been holding in.

"I've been helping him to get his memories back," she explained, "With the serum, you know. He mentioned you, so I thought-"

Steve nodded, already picking up his bag and heading out of the gym.

"Where do you live?"

* * *

"You hungry?" Erin asked, looking over to Bucky, who was sat on the other side of her couch, completely engrossed in the television, which was half way through Beauty and the Beast. Crookshanks was curled up in the space between them.

"Shh." Bucky muttered, transfixed by the screen. It was near the end of the movie, and Gaston and the townsfolk had gone in a mob to try to kill the Beast. Erin smiled and rolled her eyes at his response, getting up from the couch and picking up an orange from her fruit bowl. She peeled the skin off and threw it in the trashcan, jumping back onto the couch ungracefully and causing Crookshanks to grumble angrily at her for the unexpected movement.

She wordlessly offered Bucky a segment of the orange, and he smiled at her, taking it and popping it into his mouth, before settling back in to watch the remainder of the film. He looked a lot better than he had that morning, when his eyes had been lined with dark circles. He'd put the thin black sweatshirt on again, zipping it up to his sternum.

Erin had purposefully wrapped a thin black silk scarf around her neck to hide the bruises from earlier. Bucky had noticed it. He kept glancing at it guiltily, but hadn't said anything. Eventually, Erin had sighed and snapped, 'I'm not about to shatter, Barnes. It takes a lot more than a choke to scare me off.'

Bucky had pursed his lips, but stayed silent. He didn't believe her.

The film finished not long after, and Erin stretched her arms above her head, masking a yawn. Bucky turned to her, his eyes lit.

"That," he said, "Was incredible."

Erin let out a snort and pulled her legs up underneath her, sitting on them on the couch.

"Who knew you'd end up such a Disney-lover?"

There was a knock on the door that made both of them jump. Erin stood up and walked over, glancing through the small eye-level hole to see who was outside.

It was him.

She turned to Bucky, a slightly guilty look on her face.

"Don't hate me for this."

He quirked his eyebrow, confused.

"What are you talking about?"

"I invited someone over," Erin admitted, "I thought it would be good for you-"

Bucky was up like a shot, walking towards Erin with a purposeful stride. He reached her in only three steps, looking down at her with an expression of fury.

"You had no right," he hissed, "I'm in hiding, Erin. I don't need anyone here but _you_."

She rolled her eyes, all too aware of the proximity. They were so close that she could feel the heat rolling off Bucky's torso in waves. He was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling. Her heartbeat increased slightly, her breathing hitched. He was angry at her, leaning over her.

Without thinking, she took an involuntary step backwards, and Bucky straightened as soon as he noticed, a slightly embarrassed look on his face.

"Hear me out. You know him."

"I don't know _anyone_ , Erin-"

She turned around and unlocked the door, opening it to the bulky form of Steve Rogers, blonde hair and blue eyes and infuriatingly perfect jawline all in place.

"Holy crap you're taller than I thought you were going to be..." Erin muttered, but Steve wasn't looking at her. He was looking right past her into the eyes of the man who, a few seconds ago, had been looming over Erin like a dark cloud.

"Buck..." His lips formed the word but no sound came out. Steve took a large step forwards into the apartment and raised his arms, enveloping the shorter man in his massive grip. Bucky flinched for a second, not used to such close contact, before raising his arms in response and replicating the hug. Steve took a step back, his arms on the dark haired man's shoulders.

"God, Buck. I missed you."

* * *

A coffee, black, one spoonful of sugar.

That was how Bucky had always used to drink it, and Steve smiled to himself when the bubbly blonde waitress returned with their order, placing a glass of orange juice in front of Steve, and a steaming mug of black liquid in front of Bucky.

The diner was refreshingly small, a vintage-themed place with pink and white striped walls, and as it said on the plaque outside, a 'genuine 40s feel'. The irony wasn't lost on Steve.

"I'll be back in just a second with your food," She smiled, staring at Bucky's face for slightly too long before spinning on her heel and walking back towards the kitchen.

"I think she has a crush on you," Steve muttered when she was out of earshot. Bucky let out a snort of laughter.

"Some things never change,"

Steve smirked and shook his head, taking a sip of his orange juice. It was nice, refreshing. He would have preferred to be drinking something slightly stronger, but he had his reputation to keep up.

"Always a ladies man," Steve chuckled.

Bucky raised his lip in a smile but said nothing, stirring his coffee with a metal teaspoon and taking a sip, the scalding liquid burning his throat on the way down. It was a good burn. It was nice to finally be able to feel things again. It had also been a long time since a woman had looked at him with anything other than an expression of fear or scientific interest.

He could never shake the feeling that when he was with Erin, she was always studying him, seeing how he acted and moved and hypothesising the reasons behind it. It could get exhausting after a while. Not that he didn't enjoy her company. She was one of the very few people, Steve included, that Bucky managed to feel comfortable around. She hadn't minded him going out for a drink with Steve. If anything, she had basically shoved him out of the door, desperate for him to have some face-to-face interaction with another person.

"What happened after that day on the helicarrier, Buck?"

Bucky looked up at Steve. So he was just going straight in for the questions, no waffling around. That was fair enough.

"I pulled you out of the river," He saw Steve give a small nod of recognition at the memory, and continued, "Then I laid low for a while. Motel after motel, paying with cash."

The blonde waitress returned, and placed a scone in front of Steve, and a cheese sandwich on Bucky's place. He didn't fail to notice the way that she bent down very purposefully in front of him, giving him a full view of her cleavage.

She walked away, hips swaying, and Bucky noticed Steve trying to hold in a laugh. He rolled his eyes.

"Just like old times, huh?" The blonde chuckled, taking a monster-bite of his scone and waiting for Bucky to continue with his story. The brunette rolled his eyes at the jab but kept on talking nonetheless.

"I had notebooks from my time at HYDRA. Only a few, and not many of them filled, but there was a page that kept getting to me. It just said 'Jefferson. Memories?' and Erin's address."

Steve raised an eyebrow.

"And you don't remember writing it?"

Bucky shook his head.

"Not at all. It took me a few months to pluck up the courage to check it out. I wasn't sure if I could trust Jefferson. If they were a possible helper or a HYDRA agent, you know?"

Steve nodded his head. He certainly did know. Ever since the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. he had been constantly looking over his shoulder, always worried of spies, assassins, whatever might be thrown at him. He could see that it could be even worse for someone like Bucky. Someone with no friends and no memories, nobody to rely on in an emergency.

"And when you finally visited her?"

Bucky snorted out a humourless laugh at the memory. What had she thrown at him? A wooden baseball bat? He certainly hadn't been expecting that.

"I got the surprise of my life," he admitted, "I thought she would have been a guy."

"Ah," Steve replied, taking another bite of his scone. It was astounding to him how much Bucky had changed. He wasn't the Winter Soldier whom he had fought on the helicarrier anymore, dead eyes and a blank face, but he was a far cry from the man he had used to be. The Bucky Barnes that Steve knew wouldn't be constantly looking down at his hands as he spoke, nervous in his guilt.

This Bucky was floating around an equilibrium of the two, Steve was just waiting to see which side of him would win.

"What did she do to you?"

Bucky bit his lip, the memory of the truth-serum incident still burned into his memory. 'I remember your eyes?' He was still a little embarrassed about that. It was true, though. Since that day, he had had several flashbacks of her time at HYDRA, most of them not lasting more than a few seconds. Everything was always slightly blurry around the edges, but the centrefold of every memory were those brown eyes, clear as the day.

He wondered to himself what that meant.

"She gave me some of her truth serum and asked me a bunch of questions," he answered, putting her eyes out of his mind and focusing on the facts, "My name, my friends, stuff like that."

Steve nodded pensively.

"And I came up?"

Bucky rolled his eyes.

"Of course, you came up, Steve. You're my best friend."

The blonde smiled at that. It was true, sitting here talking with Bucky like nothing had ever happened reminded him of how it had used to be, before the war and the fights and the ice. A crazy idea came into his head.

"You know, I have an apartment to myself in the middle of the city. It's not big and the water pressure is a bit temperamental, but if you want you could come stay?"

Barnes thought about that for a second, twiddling his thumbs together.

"Steve, man, that's really kind of you..."

Steve could sense a 'but' coming.

"But I'm still not done with Erin. There're some things I need to get from her first before I leave."

Steve raised a single eyebrow over a startlingly blue eye in jest.

"What kind of 'things'?" he joked. He knew Bucky well enough to know what kind of things he was probably thinking about. The brunet let out a snort of laughter.

"Not _those_ kinds of things, Steve," Bucky reassured him, "I need to find out more about my past, and I can only do that with the truth serum. She's still useful to me."

He cringed slightly at the heartlessness of that last sentence, and he couldn't help the slight blush rising on his cheeks as he realised how what he had said originally came out as. He certainly wasn't looking for that kind of favour from Erin.

Was he?

It was a weird situation for him.

Sure, she was attractive. Gorgeous hair and a great pair of legs, and if it had been anyone else, he would probably have already tried it on, but there was something... _different_ about Erin that stopped him. She wasn't like the girls he had known before HYDRA, who had only talked to him because of his looks, or because he was a soldier. But then again, she wasn't like the women he had known post-HYDRA either. The Generals had occasionally brought women to the facility for him. Beautiful women with long hair and gleaming eyes. He had turned every one of them down.

Erin didn't look through him, didn't look at him warily or with fear. When she spoke to him, she looked him straight in the eyes, every time, not afraid of what she would find. She listened to what he had to say in response and actually seemed like she cared. For the first time in what felt like forever, Bucky had someone who accepted him unconditionally.

He didn't want to ruin that with something as trivial as _sex_.

He wondered to himself what their relationship would be like if they had met under different circumstances. If she was a nurse, perhaps, in the war effort, or a girl from Brooklyn back in the 40s. He would have asked her father's permission to take her out to Coney Island, and spent all night trying to win her a stuffed teddy from the small basketball kiosk. He may have taken her dancing, and laughed when she tripped up or stood on his feet, her small body enveloped in his.

But they hadn't met under different circumstances, they had met when he had kidnapped her from her flat and brought her to a secret facility to be tortured. That was kind of a definite romance killer. The best he could hope to be to her now was a good friend, a confidant.

He checked his watch, shocked when he noticed that it was nearly 6 O'clock already. He had to get back, there was still so much more he wanted to know about himself.

After an awkward encounter in which Bucky tried to pay for their food without the slightly-too-friendly waitress actually touching his hand or his arm, without much success, the pair of them walked out into the dark night, smiling to themselves.

It was almost like old times.

* * *

 **AS ALWAYS PLZ LEAVE A REVIew. and check out my new star wars fic called 'FRICTION' if you have the chance.**


	23. Part Two: seven

**in all honesty (eeEEH PUN) Im so grateful to everyone who has stuck around through 26 fuckin chapters of fuckin buildup to romance. Thank you. Your prayers have been answered a bit (a little bit) in this chapter. Read on my lovely lovely followers xx As a warning this is a MASSIVE FAT CHAPTER so im sorry about that.**

* * *

"So you bailed on your date with the Doctor?"

Erin looked down at her hands, not wanting to meet Doctor Kennedy's eye. She hadn't exactly bailed on Daveed, she's just asked him for a rain check. She couldn't really have gone out with him with the knowledge that a master assassin was on her couch trying to bond with her cat.

"I just postponed it."

The psychiatrist pursed his lips together and gave a small sigh, picking up his pen and jotting something down on his pad of paper. Erin shuffled in her seat, uncomfortable. She had considered skipping her session that Monday and instead going straight home to Bucky, but she had changed her mind at the last minute. She had assured Bruce Banner that she would attend Dr Kennedy's sessions twice a week until she was better. She was certainly on the path to recovery, but it was still a while until she saw herself getting there.

She had promised to let Bucky try the MFCTS serum again tonight, after refusing his pleas for it the night before. She didn't know what an overdose of the serum would do to a person. The chances were that it was completely harmless, but regardless, she would prefer to give the guy at least a day in between his dosages. It was weird, going off to the University to teach that morning with the knowledge that she had left a strange man in her house. She was half expecting to get back there tonight and find her cat and Bucky missing.

"Erin, that was going to be a good thing for you," The doctor sounded disappointed in her, "I thought I told you that new relationships were important for your recovery."

She sighed. It _had_ been slightly awkward seeing Daveed again that morning. Sure, he had been nice and said hi, but she had the feeling that she'd slightly insulted him by basically slamming the door in his face on Friday night.

"I know, I know," she replied, "I just had some other stuff I had to deal with."

The doctor raised a single eyebrow over a deep brown eye.

"Other stuff that's more important than your recovery? _What on Earth happened, Erin?"_

She bit her lip, struggling for an explanation.

 _You remember the man with the metal arm? The one from my nightmares, who kidnapped me a few months ago? Yeah, well he's sleeping on my couch and trying to steal my cat's affections from me._

Maybe not.

"Something came up."

The doctor gave her a stern look over the top of his glasses.

"Something?" His voice was incredulous.

"Yeah, you know, I just had some things to sort out,"

"Erin. Everything you say in this room is confidential, you know that." The doctor's voice was soothing, "If you start to hide stuff from me again I won't be able to help you."

Erin let out a deep breath that she didn't know she'd been holding in. She was wary discussing Bucky with anyone, even her therapist.

"An old friend came by unexpectedly."

Well, that certainly wasn't what he had expected to hear. Erin had a track record of being bad with people, Bruce Banner was the only friend that she had managed not to drive away with her anxiety and the tiny tremor in her right hand that just wouldn't go away. It was unusual for her to even have a new friend, but to actually offer them a place in her home? The doctor was curious.

"What kind of friend? Like someone from school, an old boyfriend?"

"No, nothing like that," Erin reassured him. What was Bucky, exactly? "He's just a guy I met in Europe a while ago when I was travelling."

Not a lie, technically, just not the full truth.

He considered this statement for a second before placing down his pen and rubbing his jaw with his left hand.

"What's his name?"

Erin raised an eyebrow and the doctor backtracked almost immediately, noticing the apprehensive look in Erin's eye.

"You don't have to tell me-"

"James," She replied confidently, "His name is James."

Kennedy nodded at her, his face impassive.

"And you would say that you and James have a healthy relationship?"

 _Well, he did try to strangle me to death a few days ago..._

"We have our issues, but yeah, he's alright. I trust him."

Erin surprised herself when she realised that she believed what she had said. Somehow, even though it made no sense at all, she had ended up trusting Bucky. Even after everything that had happened. The doctor nodded once again, a smile on his face.

"That's good. That's really good, Erin."

* * *

"Alright!" Erin yelled as she opened the door, throwing her bag down on the couch. Bucky caught it with one hand, his reflexes lightning fast. Erin ignored him and walked directly to the kitchen, picking up a green laminated piece of card from off a shelf.

"I can't be arsed cooking, do you mind if I order in a takeaway?" She asked. Bucky raised an eyebrow. She was asking him his opinion? Seriously?

"Not at all," he replied, placing her bag down next to him and crossing his legs over each other, "How was the doctor?"

Erin had told him that morning about her frequent psychiatrist visits. A part of Bucky had felt unbearably guilty at her admission, he couldn't help but feel that it was his fault that she was in need of help. He had certainly noticed the slight tremor in her right hand, even when she, not very inconspicuously, tried to shake it away. Whatever had happened in that HYDRA base, it had changed her. Not just by the scars on her legs, which she was very sure to cover at all times, but in her mind as well. It wasn't unusual for him to wake up in the middle of the night and hear heavy breathing from inside her room; a sure sign of nightmares.

"Yeah, he was alright," Erin responded, picking up her phone and dialling in a number, "He's pissed that I didn't go on that date with Daveed."

Bucky pursed his lips, a muscle in his jaw twitching. For some weird reason, he was pretty happy she hadn't gone.

"Was that the Asian guy outside your flat on the first day?"

Erin nodded absent-mindedly, flicking through the laminated menu on her tabletop.

"Uh huh," She looked up at Bucky, "Do you want a pizza?"

He couldn't lie, a pizza sounded fucking _great_ right about now. He nodded.

"Pepperoni, please,"

"Hi!" Erin's voice was slightly too bright as she answered the phone, "Could I get a large Hawaiian and a large pepperoni, please? Mmm hmm? Yep."

Bucky zoned out and went back to petting the cat, watching Erin intently. She seemed, to his joy, to be slightly more relaxed around him than she had been previously been. She leant against the counter with her hip popped out almost nonchalantly, her eyes focused intently on the menu in her hand, not flicking back and forth as if she expected Bucky to jump out of his seat and attack her at any point. She placed the phone back down in its holder and looked at Bucky with a grave expression on her face.

His heart dropped.

"What? What's wrong?" He asked her, worried, "Is everything alright?"

"Bucky..." The way she said his name cut a dagger of ice through his chest, "I have an important question to ask you."

 _Oh God, Oh God, Oh God._

"What?" He asked slightly apprehensively. She let out a sigh and came to sit next to him on the sofa, burying her hands between her knees as she sat.

"Do you wanna do Star Wars then truth serum or truth serum then Star Wars?"

Bucy raised an eyebrow, literally feeling the anxiety leave his body with the exasperated sigh that he let out. Erin kept talking.

"Because if we do Star Wars first, you might be worried about MFCTS, but then I don't want the ecstatic experience of Star Wars for the first time to be ruined by the stuff you may or may not find out."

Bucky sat in silence for a second. He couldn't remember the last time that anyone had actually cared this much for his feelings, it was a novel situation.

"Star Wars first,"

* * *

"I don't get it," Bucky was on his fourth slice of pizza, feet tucked under his body, staring in confusion at the six DVDs that Erin had lined up on the floor. She looked up at him.

"Why are we watching the fourth episode first?"

He could see Erin try to hide a smile at his question. She pushed the DVD into the player and grabbed the remote, plonking herself down next to Bucky in the exact same position. Knees crossed, back against the backrest. She didn't seem to notice the fact that the tip of her knee was brushing against the tip of Bucky's.

"In the time that it would take me to explain it to you we could probably have got through the whole trilogy," she admitted, picking up a piece of pizza, taking a large bite, and pressing the button on the remote. Yellow words flashed up on the screen, rolling up.

 ** _Episode IV, A NEW HOPE_**

 ** _It is a period of civil war._**

 ** _Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base,_**

 ** _have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire._**

"Who's the Galactic Empire?"

"If you would shut up and read the bloody text you'd bloody know," replied Erin, who was watching the screen intensely, whilst trying to fit two entire slices of Hawaiian pizza into her mouth. Bucky raised an eyebrow at her. She turned her head to look at him, and the pair stayed like that for a solid five seconds, staring intently at each other's eyes, before bursting simultaneously into fits of laughter.

"Okay, okay I'm shutting up," Bucky chuclked out, drawing his eyes from Erin and focusing them instead of the words of the screen. He couldn't remember the last time that he had laughed as much. He didn't know what it was about Erin, if it was her easy going way of talking or her smile that seemed to catch the light every time he saw it, but he felt almost disgustingly happy in her company.

He settled back in his position, chewing pensively as the text faded from the screen and was replaced by a scene. To his surprise Bucky actually really got into the movie, even leaning forwards from his seat in excitement at pivotal moments. Despite occasional quips from Erin such as:

 _"WAIT until you find out who that guy is."_

he actually found himself completely transfixed. About half way through the film, he noticed a hand sneaking into the right of his field of vision. He glanced to the side to see Erin trying to take a piece of pepperoni pizza from his plate without disturbing him, contorting herself into a ridiculously uncomfortable position so as to steal the food without arousing his suspicion.

"You alright there?" He asked jokily. She let out a pained grunt.

"Nothing to see here, keep watching."

He rolled his eyes and picked up his plate with one hand, and the whole of Erin's torso with the other, pulling her back onto the couch.

"You could have just asked, you know?" He laughed, holding out the plate. She took a single slice, and shrugged.

"Where's the fun in that?"

She was relatively silent for the remainder of the film, apart from occasionally butting in with cryptic sentences such as 'Pay close attention to this bit. This will be important later.'

Ironically, Bucky realised that he would be paying far closer attention to the film if it weren't for her constant giddy interruptions, but he found himself not minding it at all. It was nice to have somebody speak to him just for the sake of having a conversation.

When the film finished, Erin hopped up and removed the DVD from the TV, placing it reverently back into the holder. She looked up at Bucky expectantly.

"Well?"

He rolled his eyes.

"That was the most amazing thing that I have ever seen in my entire life and I would like to thank you personally for showing it to me." He deadpanned. She laughed.

"Damn right."

Erin hopped up from her spot on the floor and meandered into the kitchen, opening up a cupboard and pulling out a familiar looking bottle.

Ah.

Bucky couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed by the fact that she had gone straight for the MFCTS, he would have preferred to just sit for a while and talk. It was too late now, though. She looked back and noticed the apprehensive look on his face, slowing her movement immediately.

"Are you sure you want to do this? We could wait until tomorrow…"

Bucky rolled his eyes.

"Nah, hit me up."

The corner of her mouth quirked into a smile as she pipetted seven drops of the light green solution into a glass and filled it up, as she had done before, with straight whiskey. Bucky had tried to make her smile, tried to lighten the sombre mood that had suddenly encompassed the little flat, but it didn't prevent the feeling that there was a large piece of lead weighing down on his chest. He knew what he wanted to find out today, which part of his past he would tell Erin to ask him about. He wasn't sure if _she_ would want to do it, though.

She handed him the tumbler of whiskey and he smiled and raised it up with one hand.

"To your health."

He necked the drink in one go, gagging slightly at the familiar aftertaste of chlorine as the burning liquid ran down his throat. Erin grabbed the last piece of pizza of Bucky's plate and held it up, a questioning look in her eye.

"Do you want this?"

He shook his head.

"Nah, you have it. I'm good."

To be honest, he was better than good. That had been the best meal he had had in as long as he could remember. It was an unusual experience for him to feel 'full' and he was revelling in it.

She smiled and took a large bite, walking into her bedroom and coming back holding a small leather notebook.

"What's that for?" Bucky asked, curious. He hadn't seen it before.

"It's just to write stuff down," She responded, sitting down on the couch and gesturing for Bucky to do the same. He came to sit beside her, their knees touching again.

"You know that photo in your room?" Bucky asked. He had been meaning to ask her this for a while, but had kept putting it off.

"Which one? The graduation one?" She asked, he nodded.

"Who was that other guy with you and your mom?"

Bucky remembered the photo well since the last time he had seen it. Erin, an older woman that he had assumed to be her mother, and a tall handsome man with curly blonde hair, his arm wrapped tightly around Erin's shoulders.

"That's Will. My big brother. Well, by seven minutes my big brother but…"

"Your _twin?"_ Bucky asked in shock. He had been sure that the man had been a boyfriend of some sort. He guessed looking back that he could see the familiarities. The same wildly curly blonde hair, the same deep brown eyes set in the same clear pale face.

"Yeah. I went to America to make magic potions and he went to Glasgow to study waste management. I think I got the better deal."

Bucky let out a snort of laughter. He felt slightly… _relieved?_

"Do you know what kind of stuff you want me to ask you today?" Erin asked, her head tilted slightly to the side. Bucky nodded, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a crumpled piece of paper. He'd written a list that morning. Erin raised her eyes in surprise at the proffered item, but took it silently, her eyes running through the questions at a lightning-fast speed. She looked up at him, her eyes wary.

"Are you sure about this?"

He bit his bottom lip between his teeth, and nodded.

"If you're alright with it. I want to know."

She inhaled, held her breath for a second, then let it out in a long sigh. When she looked back up at him, her face was drawn.

"You don't need to know this stuff, Bucky. You don't need to hate yourself more than you already do."

Bucky shook his head. He did. He needed to know the answer to every fucking question he had written down on that fucking piece of paper.

Erin nodded silently.

"I'm gonna do a test question first, alright?"

He nodded. Make sure the serum was working. He'd done this before. He knew what to expect.

"What's my name?"

Erin Jefferson. Those impossibly dark eyes and that smile that could stop him breathing at the right moment. Erin Jefferson, with a laugh like a hyena and a sense of humour that was innapropriate at the best of times. He scrunched up his face, trying in vain to think of a different name. He had to lie, that was the point of this test, but he couldn't. It was the same name, again and again and again. Erin Jefferson. Erin Jefferson. _Erin Jefferson._

"Erin Jefferson." He breathed out.

She nodded, opening up her small leather book and writing something down in it. He couldn't see what.

She gave him one last stern look.

"Are you sure you want me to ask you these questions?"

"Yes." His answer was instant, "Only if you're comfortable with it. I don't want you to have to relive everything that happened." Sure, he was terrified of what he would find, but he would rather know what he did than be ignorant of it. Erin nodded.

"I relive it every night, Buck. One more time won't hurt."

She looked him directly in the eye.

"What happened to me at HYDRA?"

Bucky closed his eyes once the question was asked. He knew what was about to happen.

Screams filled his head, one single scream in particular. High-pitched and agonisingly familiar. He winced slightly at the sound.

Suddenly, he was in a room, a familiar room, Pine's office. The tall Colonel was leaning against the desk, looking at him with barely concealed irriatation.

 _"But what about my next mission?"_

 _"This_ _is_ _your next mission." Pine explained through gritted teeth, "We need that formula."_

 _"Then just torture it out of her." Bucky responded, the irritation in his voice clear, "You don't need me here for that."_

Another room, a different day. Erin's tiny body crumpled against itself, holding her arm to her chest in agony, her bare legs ripped to shreds under the florescent light of the interrogation room. That explained the scars that he had seen.

 _"I'm sorry."_

 _She quirked her eyebrow in confusion at his statement._

 _"What?"_

 _"About this..." He gestured to her arm, "It was messily done."_

 _She let out a humourless snort at that, and looked him in the eyes. It always shocked him, just how dark her eyes were. They were the kind of eyes that a person remembers long after they have gone._

 _"I don't suppose there's any chance of just lopping it off and hooking me up with one of them?" She gestured to his metal arm with her eyes._

Bucky let out a small snort of laughter into the quiet of Erin's living room.

"What?" Erin's voice cut through his periphery.

"You had quite the mouth on you."

A third image flashed into Bucky's head. Erin wasn't there that time, he was sat in a staff common room, listening to a burly blonde soldier describe what he would do to her in vivid detail if he had the chance. Bucky's metal fist clenched unconsciously.

 _"Lay one finger on that girl and I'll rip your spine out through your mouth."_

His eyes shot open, breath coming heavy. Erin was looking at him, concerned.

"I took you to HYDRA. You were my mission. Pine interrogated you and it was my job to gain your trust."

The corner of Erin's lip quirked up in a small smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"I knew there was a reason behind all your kindness."

"Pine was brutal," Bucky continued, "He cut your legs, broke your arm. You wouldn't tell him, though. You wouldn't tell him the formula."

Erin nodded silently.

"Goodwinson helped you out. And he. Oh. Oh God, Goodwinson." Bucky's hand came to his mouth as he recalled the way that he had been sent to clear up the boy's dead body. His glassy eyes, only twenty one years old, had stared back at him almost accusatorily. That was something he wouldn't forget.

"Poor Goodwinson," Erin agreed, her eyes downcast. She obviously remembered the boy as well. Bucky noticed her right hand shaking, tapping an erratic rhythm on her leg.

"You got out, though. They blamed me for it. Wiped me and got me to start again."

Erin's eyebrows rasied.

"They blamed you? I'm sorry."

Bucky shook his head.

"Don't be. I'm glad you got out."

They were silent for a long time, looking at eachother. The only noise in the room was the steady tapping of Erin's right hand on her knee, getting faster and faster. She eventually placed her left hand firmly over it to stop it from moving and averted her eyes.

"Sorry,"

"No." Bucky said, shaking his head, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have made you go through that again."

She let out a deep sigh and looked directly at him, her eyes startlingly brown.

"I can't be afraid of my own memories, Bucky. That's not going to do anybody any good."

Bucky nodded and pushed his hair back from his eyes. He felt dirty, sitting here in front of the girl whose life had been almost ruined by him.

"Do you want to carry on?" Erin asked gently. She didn't want to push him, obviously. Bucky nodded. He may as well get all of this done with.

"Ask me the question at the bottom of the paper." The question that he wanted to save until last. The single answer that he was more terrified of than any other. He just wanted to get it over with, now. Wanted to know.

Erin nodded and glanced down at the paper, then looked up at Bucky with a serious face.

"I don't think-"

"Please." His voice was begging, she looked unsure, but the look of desperation in Bucky's eyes eventually won her over.

"Alright." She let out a long breath, and looked him directly in the eye.

"How many people did you kill as the Winter Soldier?"

Bucky jolted slightly in his place as the serum began to work through his veins. Images flashed through his head, hundreds upon hundreds of people, faces that he didn't recognise and some that he did, all with the same look of absolute fear. A thousand voices shouting at him, screaming inside his head. _"No!" "Please!"_ His breathing hitched as he saw himself, _felt_ his hand closing around a woman's windpipe, pulling on a trigger, driving a sharp knife deep into the exact right point on a man's neck to kill him within seconds.

"I don't know."

His voice was little more than a whisper. The images and sounds slowly faded into blackness, and the fuzzy image of Erin, looking at him worriedly, came back into focus. He was cold, shivering, but he could feel beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

"What do you mean?" She asked. Her voice was gentle. _Too_ gentle, after everything that Bucky had just seen.

"I don't know how many I killed. More than I can count." His voice broke on the last word, and Erin opened her mouth to say something, but decided better of it and closed it again. She moved her body closer to his on the couch so their thighs were touching. He looked up at her, his blue eyes shining.

"Fuck, Erin. I'm a monster."

She grimaced at his phrasing, and almost on impulse, raised her hand to his face. She cupped his cheek, and he was embarrassed to say that he leant into the touch. It had been so long. So long since he had had skin to skin contact with someone like this. Her hand was warm, soft on his slightly stubbled jaw. This girl. This impossible girl who had lived so much and still had kidness to impart upon him. He had been the reason that she had been taken to HYDRA in the first place. He had been the catalyst that had started the events in the Poland base that were still flashing through his mind like aftershocks, and here she was, trying to comfort him. He shook his head imperceptibly.

"I don't deserve you, Erin."

She shook her head.

"That was _them_ , Bucky. Not you. It was HYDRA." She said, her heavily accented voice soft.

Her face was so close to his that he could smell the rose scent of her shampoo. Roses had always been his favourite flower. He shook his head, his eyes boring deep into hers, light on dark.

"It wasn't HYDRA who pulled the trigger. It wasn't HYDRA who saw the light fade out of their eyes, Erin. That was all me."

She licked her lips, a tiny pink tongue darting out nervously as he spoke. The corner of her lip lifted into a sad smile. He didn't like to see her sad.

Bucky didn't know how it happened. One minute he was looking deep into her eyes, and the next he had raised his hand to her face in a mimicry of her original gesture. Her skin was so smooth, nothing like his own weather beaten cheek. On impulse, he leant forwards and planed his lips gently on her cheek, surprised by the salty tang on her skin. He drew back, and was shocked to see tears running down her face.

"Erin…" he muttered, wiping the tears away with the pad of his thumb, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

She shook her head, not able to say another word, and suddenly jerked forwards and wrapped her arms around his neck. He flinched initially at the contact, not used to hugs, but after a while brought his arms up nonetheless, wrapping them tightly around her back. She felt so fragile underneath his strong hands; he could feel every bone in her ribcage. He buried his face into her hair, inhaling that strong scent of rose. He was positive. That was _definitely_ his favourite flower.

It was her who pulled away first, to his disappointment. She stood up, brushing herself off, her face slightly red. She gave him a smile.

"You are not the Winter Soldier, Bucky. You are so _so_ much more."

With that, she turned her back and walked into her bedroom, closing the door with a soft click and leaving Bucky, heart racing, sat on the couch.

The room was silent, too quiet. Something was missing.

She hadn't locked her door.


	24. Part Two: eight

IM SORRY IT'S BEEN SO LONG SINCE I POSTED A CHAPTER BUT YOU GUYS ARE IN FOR A TREAT WITH THIS ONE SO I HOPE THAT MAKES UP FOR IT

* * *

 **TWO WEEKS LATER**

Bucky awoke with a heavy feeling on his chest, a weight on his sternum that gave him an unexplained sense of anxiety. He rubbed his tired eyes with his hand and unexpectedly the weight lifted. Confused, he looked down at his bare chest to see Crookshanks, annoyed at her regular 'bed' moving, getting up from his sternum and hopping off the couch, padding over to the kitchen. Bucky smiled to himself. Okay, so that explained the weight on his chest. The fat orange cat had taken his stomach as her new sleeping place for the last two weeks.

He sat up groggily, his mind still racing to catch up with his body. It had been a long time since he had slept that well. A _long time_. His blue eyes glanced towards the clock on the wall of Erin's living room and his eyebrows raised when he noticed that it was already ten O'Clock. He had slept in until _ten O'Clock_? It was a rare occurrence for Bucky to wake up later than seven. Usually, his nightmares brought him out of unconsciousness long before that. He saw this as a good sign. He was getting more comfortable here, returning to normalcy.

"Erin?" He called out. There was no answer. She must have gone out. It was weird to think that at some point that morning, she had walked right past him and he hadn't even stirred. Something like that would never have happened a month ago. He used to sleep so lightly that even the slightest sound would wake him. He pushed himself up from the couch and walked into the kitchen with the intent of getting himself a glass of water. His mouth was dry. On the side of the kitchen table was a letter, hastily scribbled in Erin's spiky scrawl.

 **'Bucky,**

 **I've gone to work. Might be a bit late back, I have an appointment with Dr Kennedy.**

 **Lasagne in the freezer.**

 **Please don't steal Crookshanks and run.**

 **Erin x'**

Bucky rolled his eyes to himself and picked up the note, reading through it again, a smirk on his face. He wasn't going to steal Crookshanks and run, no matter how much Erin thought he was. He didn't want to leave here. There was something about this little flat that made him feel at home, despite the fact that there was so much mess that he could barely see the floor. He didn't fail to notice the fact that she had placed a small 'x' under her name, a kiss. His heart warmed slightly at that. He scrunched the letter up and tossed it in the bin, narrowly avoiding the cat, and poured himself his glass of water, downing it in one, revelling as the cool liquid soothed his dry throat.

So she was visiting the psychiatrist again, Dr Kennedy. He guessed he shouldn't be surprised. She had been to her regular appointments, twice a week, since she had first met him. The sense of guilt still clawed at his insides. The fact that _he_ was responsible for her nightmares. _He_ had done this to her.

He had noticed a distinct difference in the way that she acted around him since that night. The night when he had brushed his lips against her tear soaked cheek and hugged her so tightly it was like he was trying to meld their bodies together. She was calmer, a lot less tense around him. She no longer jumped when she caught him unexpectedly out of the corner of her eye. She'd even gone as far as to walk around the flat in a pair of loose fitting pyjama shorts once, not even trying to hide the crosshatch of scars on the tops of her toned legs. He could tell that she was still self-conscious about them, but she seemed to be trying to make an effort to normalise it.

Seeing her like that, her long toned legs bare in the warm light of the flat, didn't exactly help Bucky. He had been _trying_ to stay at an arm's distance from her since that night. It wasn't that he didn't like her, quite the opposite, he felt comfortable around her in a way that was incredibly rare for him. She was beautiful and refreshingly ignorant of it. She joked with him, made him smile. It wasn't uncommon for her brown eyes to flash across his dreams at night.

To his embarrassment, it _certainly_ wasn't uncommon for Bucky to wake up in the middle of the night, panting, sweat covering his chest and his grey sweatpants feeling uncomfortably tight, the image of her small body under his much larger one still echoing in the back of his mind. He held his overactive imagination responsible, but it didn't stop the faint blush he felt rise to his cheeks every time Erin would bend over in a loose-fitting top and he would catch a glimpse of her cleavage. It was like he was a 16-year-old boy again, he had no idea what was happening to him.

But nothing could ever happen between them. She was broken, and so was he. She needed someone stable in her life, a person who she could lean on. What she didn't need was a guy like Bucky, a guy with so many cracks it was a wonder he was holding himself together at all.

You couldn't put two broken people together and expect them to fix each other.

So he had taken a step back, still been polite, still been friendly, but he had made sure not to get too close. They had carried on the MFCTS treatment, and Bucky just kept learning hidden things about his past. He had met Steve when he had punched a broad, loud-mouthed bully called Jake Smithe in the nose for stealing Steve's lunch, and the two had been friends ever since. His mother's name was Sarah. He used to wear rolled up newspapers in his shoes to try and get them to fit.

Erin had, every time, written down her findings in that old leather notebook, her black scrawl spidering across the pages. Bucky hadn't read it yet. There was a part of him that didn't want to.

He pursed his lips and glanced over to Erin's work-table, where her essays and papers were fanned out so messily that he could barely see the mahogany wood underneath them. There was a mobile phone thrown carelessly against a folder that contained published works on the function of the lungs. He walked over and picked it up, the heavy weight in his hands stabilising him slightly. Jabbing the only number he had memorised besides Erin's into the keypad, he held the phone up to his ear, listening to the dialling tone.

"Hello?" The deep voice on the other side answered.

"Steve," Bucky smiled upon hearing his friend's voice, "Erin's gone out to work, I don't suppose you fancy coming around?"

"Erin's place?"

"Yep."

Sometimes, Bucky just needed to talk to his best friend. This was one of those times, and, after all, he _did_ have a lasagne in the freezer.

Bucky could practically see Steve's eyes crinkling at the sides as he grinned, "I'll bring the beer."

* * *

Erin spent longer than she had planned in Doctor Kennedy's front room. He had been more interested than she had imagined about 'James', the man she had told him was currently staying on her sofa. According to Kennedy, it was a 'vast improvement' that she trusted somebody enough to let them stay over at her house. It meant that she was starting to open up to people again after the incident in Poland. She had to smile to herself at that. Sure, she had been apprehensive of Bucky's motives when he had first come to ask her for help, but she couldn't help but feel that the pair of them had grown insurmountably closer during the weeks that they had spent together.

One big difference was that she didn't lock her bedroom door anymore. It wasn't that Bucky had told her she didn't need to, she had just felt it. After that night, when he had asked her to find out things about his past that he would have been better off not knowing, Erin had made it her mission to try her best to get him back to where he was before HYDRA. To get him back to living as a regular functioning human. She had attempted, though well or not she couldn't tell, to exude an air of normalcy. That had been her plan when she had left him that note this morning and sneaked past his sleeping form on the couch to get outside. The more independence and trust she gave him, the quicker it would be until he got back on his feet.

And once he was recuperated...

What would happen? Would he leave her and go and live his own life, free from anything that would remind him of his time with HYDRA? Erin knew that that was her end goal, to make him better, but there was a tiny part of her that wasn't sure if she wanted to let him go.

By the time that she left the Doctor's office, it was almost six O'Clock and Erin had to basically jog to get home before the streets went dark. she reached her flat block at half six and jogged up the stairs until she reached the door. She was just about to open it and walk in with a cheery _'I'm home!_ ' when she froze, her hand hovering over the handle. There were shouts coming from inside.

"You _bastard_!" That voice was definitely Bucky's, infuriated and angry. Erin's eyebrow's rose. Who was inside with him? Had HYDRA finally found them?

There was another voice. A man's, slightly lower, but with a similar accent.

"I'm gonna kill you, Barnes."

Her heart stopped mid-beat, and almost without realising, she pulled out the short dagger that she kept hidden beneath the waistband of her black skinny jeans. If Bucky was in trouble, the least she could do was try to help out. She wasn't going down without a fight.

"Fuck," The muttered grunt came from Bucky. Erin shook her head at the ridiculousness of her plan, as if she could fight off a guy that was giving the Winter Soldier a hard time, and burst through the door, knife in hand.

What she had expected to see was a man she didn't know, wrapped up in a fight with Bucky, punches being thrown and blood being spilt. What she _wasn't_ expecting was to see Steve Rogers sat on her sofa next to Bucky, one arm over the brunette man's eyes and the other hand holding a Nintendo Wii remote controller.

Bucky shook Steve's hand off his face and elbowed him in the ribs with his metal arm, hard. Steve let out a grunt, and the little character on his half of the television screen swerved to the left and crashed into a wayward banana peel, spiralling out of control.

"You little fucker."

"You hit me with a blue shell, don't you dare play the victim here, Rogers."

"Mario Kart?" Erin was out of breath, the knife still held in front of her. She tucked it back in her waistband, embarrassed, an instead let out a snort of laughter. There were two dirty plates piled up in the sink. At least Bucky had got her message about the lasagne.

"Hi Erin!" Bucky called out, keeping his eyes locked on the screen, where Mario sped through the finish line. He placed the controller down and looked at her, a glint in his eye. "How was the doctor?"

"Good," Erin replied, walking over to the kitchen and filling the kettle, looking back at the two men, who were still out of breath from their Video Game exertion, " _Apparently_ you're helping me to overcome my fear of intimacy."

Bucky raised an eyebrow warily.

"You told him about me?"

Erin shook her head, pulling out a mug from a cupboard above her head.

"I told him there was a guy staying with me. Didn't go into any detail, don't worry. Do you want a cup of tea?"

Bucky nodded, and Steve stood up, brushing his hands on his jeans and placing the Wii controller down on the arm of the couch.

"I think I'll head off now, actually," The blonde said, clasping his hand down on Bucky's shoulder and walking towards the door, past Erin. "I still have some shit to sort out myself."

Erin smiled and nodded. It made sense that Captain Amerca had some stuff to do on the sidelines. She waved at him as he left, closing the door tightly behind him and leaving her once again with Bucky. The room was silent as she poured out two mugs of hot water and popped teabags into them. She poured a drop of milk into each cup, added a spoonful of sugar to her own, then carried both of the cups to the couch that Bucky was sat on.

He took his tea wordlessly and took a sip, sighing slightly as the hot liquid ran down his throat. Erin followed suit. It had been a long day at work. One of her students had handed in an essay that basically consisted of the entire Wikipedia entry for the light-independent reaction of photosynthesis, but had blatantly denied plagiarism when she confronted him about it. She'd had no option but to report him to the University Board, something that she never enjoyed doing. Bucky, almost as if he could sense her tension, placed his tea down on a table next to the couch and looked over at her, a single eyebrow raised.

"...What?"

He said nothing, just stared at her with that same expression. She noticed it had been a few days since he had shaved, and a black stubble was beginning to shadow his jawline. It looked good on him.

Silently, he raised his hand to her. Clasped in the shining metal of his fist was a white rectangular shape.

She rolled her eyes.

"I'm not fucking playing Mario Kart with you. Buck..."

"You look like you've had a long day, Erin,"

He ignored her protests and grabbed the tea from her hands, placing it next to his, and replacing it with the remote controller. She couldn't help but smile at the look of excitement on his face. He looked at the screen and moved his mouse, selecting the next course.

"You're Mario and I'm Princess Peach." he explained, not looking at he as he selected Bowser's Castle and the screen went black in preparation for their next race.

"You're the Princess?" Erin's voice betrayed a smile.

"Of course," Bucky replied, a glint in his eye, "I look great in pink."

Erin rolled her eyes but gripped the controller slightly tighter nonetheless.

To her surprise, Bucky was actually a great player. He beat her easily on the first course, and the second. It was only by the time that they got to the third that Erin started to come into her own.

"Did you just hit me with a red shell?" Bucky's voice was shocked, indignant.

"You kept me hostage in Poland for _four days._ "

Bucky looked over at Erin warily when she said that, but relaxed when he noticed the cheeky grin on her face. Unsurprisingly, Bucky won the third course as well.

"For a guy who's been living under a rock for the last fifty years you're surprisingly good at this," Erin complimented, their tea now long forgotten.

"Maybe you're just crap?" He suggested, and Erin rolled her eyes at him. She was going to beat him on the next one, she vowed to herself.

"Another race?" Bucky asked.

"Get ready to eat my dust, Winter."

"I'll take that as a yes..." He muttered to himself, selecting a race course. Erin took a deep breath in, her stressful day completely forgotten. Somehow the pair of them had managed to shuffle up so close to each other on the couch that their knees were touching, brushing against each other as they moved. Neither seemed to mind much.

The race began as usual, with Bucky and Erin close together in the lead, Bucky only a slight bit ahead. He began to pull further in front of Erin and scoffed slightly as he noticed her falling behind.

Erin bit her lip and nudged to her side, hard. Bucky, surprised by the contact and slightly off-balance, lost his lead and fell behind a few places. Erin grinned to herself.

"That's cheating!" He exclaimed, shocked. Erin ignored him.

"Just call me Lance Armstrong,"

"What?"

"Doesn't matter."

The first lap was completed with Erin coming out slightly faster than Bucky. She could practically see the irritation rolling off him in waves. Unexpectedly, as they rounded the second corner, he snapped his hand out and pulled on her forearm, making her miss the turn and crash into a wall.

"You little fuck."

"That sounds adorable in your accent."

She seethed silently for a second, before coming up with a plan of action. She noticed a sly grin on the corner of Bucky's full lips as he rounded the final corner and crossed the finish line, beginning the third lap. As fast as lightning, Erin snaked her hand around the back of his neck and grabbed a clump of hair, tugging it backwards sharply. Bucky let out a gasp and dropped the remote on the ground, sending Princess Peach crashing into a nearby tree.

"HA!" Erin exclaimed in victory as she overtook him and continued along her journey. She didn't get very far.

Bucky's metal hand grabbed her wrist, and she was so surprised that she let go of the remote, sending it crashing to the floor alongside the other one. His hand was cold on her warm skin, sending goosebumps down her arm. She turned to him, shocked, and was surprised to see a look in his eyes that she had never seen before. His pupils were blown so wide that she could barely see the thin ring of sky blue around them. It was then that she became aware of their proximity. They were sat close to each other, their faces only inch apart. Too close. She could feel his breath on her lips.

"Erin."

She took in a deep breath but said nothing. Bucky leant forwards, letting go of her wrist and instead threading his fingers through the hair at the back of her neck. Her heart was beating like a drum, the competition of Mario Kart long forgotten.

"Fuck..." he muttered, his lips barely moving. He moved his head forwards and brushed his lips against hers. Barely a ghost of a whisper, but she could swear that she felt a jolt of electricity run down her spine. Bucky moved back, his face embarrassed.

"Shit. Sorry. I didn't mean to-"

Erin grabbed hold of the lapels of his shirt and tugged him forwards to her, cutting off the end of his sentence with her lips, not letting him finish. She didn't know what had come over her, but whatever it was, there was a part of her that liked it. Bucky gasped into her mouth at the unexpected contact, but responded enthusiastically, moving his lips against hers almost angrily, bringing his hand up once again to thread through her hair, pulling it slightly. Erin's eyes fluttered closed as she ran her hands up his back, the lean muscle obvious under the thin white shirt. His metal hand stayed clasped behind her neck, but his other travelled lower, splaying against the small of her back, bringing her body closer to his, pressing her against his chest. She moved limply, easily pliable in his hands. She could feel the erratic thumping of his heartbeat against hers. His nose bumped hers as he moved his head, angling himself to get better access to her lips, the stubble on his cheek scraping her slightly.

All too quickly, Bucky broke off the kiss, pushing himself back almost violently, face flushed and breath coming heavy, his lips swollen.

"Fuck. I'm sorry."

Erin rolled her eyes.

"What the hell for?"

She tried to move closer to him, but he stood up from the couch like she had shocked him with electricity.

"I can't do this. I'm not good for you."

"Bucky I think I can decide who's good for me on my own-"

He shook his head, his hair dishevelled.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He kept repeating, his voice hoarse, "I'm gonna take a walk." And with that he practically sped out of the room, slamming the door behind him and leaving Erin in complete silence. Her heart was still beating out a samba in her chest, pushing against her ribcage. The only sound was the steady drip-drip-drip of the leaky tap in the kitchen and the muted Mario Kart theme tune playing irritatingly happily in the background. Erin rested her elbows on her knees and placed her head into her hands.

"What the fuck are you doing, Jefferson?"

* * *

YEEEEAAH BABY REVIEW


	25. Part Two: nine

TO APOLOGISE FOR BEING AWAY FOR ROUGHLY 7 MILLION YEARS HERE IS A BIG FAT CHAPTER X

* * *

It was hours before Bucky returned, and Erin hadn't moved an inch from her place on the couch, still staring at the now blank television screen, thoughts whirring through her head like trains on a track. She almost didn't notice him come back in until he shouted, slightly too excitedly:

"Get changed, Erin!"

She whipped her head around in shock at the unexpected noise and was surprised to see him standing in the doorway, a look of pure excitement on his face. All traces of embarrassment from their kiss a few hours ago had disappeared from his face.

"What on Earth are you talking about?"

"Put something nice on, I'm taking you somewhere."

To say that she was surprised was an understatement. First he had told her that they couldn't get too close, and now, only a few hours later, he was asking her out. On a _date?_

"What kind of nice?" She couldn't help but notice the brightness that had appeared behind Bucky's eyes. What had he seen on his walk that had made him change his mind?

"A dress, preferably."

A shot of ice ran up Erin's back. She didn't do dresses. Not since Poland, at least, when her legs had been sliced up so badly it had taken months for the wounds to close. She didn't want people looking at her scars, wondering where they had come from.

Bucky noticed the look of abject terror on her face and immediately backtracked.

"Or trousers," he stumbled over his words, knowing instantly what the problem was, "You could just wear trousers and a nice top."

Trousers and a nice top, she could do that.

She nodded and stood up from the couch, placing her hands on her hips and tilting her head, looking at Bucky with curiosity.

"Where are we going?"

He merely raised an eyebrow over an impossibly blue eye, a glint of humour on his face.

"That would ruin the surprise, Jefferson."

She rolled her eyes, certain that she wouldn't be getting any more information out of him on the whereabouts of their unexpected date. Instead of trying, she just shook her head in amusement and strode over to her bedroom, closing the door behind her. Dress nice? She hadn't dressed nice in months, she barely knew how to do it anymore.-

Erin's wardrobe was unsurprisingly packed to the brim with a mixture of grey sweatpants and black tank tops, her usual form of attire. There was the occasional smart shirt stuffed in behind something, she usually wore them when an inspector was coming into the University, or if her lecture was being observed by one of the other professors. But as for something that she could wear on a maybe possibly perhaps date? There was nothing at all.

She heard a muted purr and looked down to see Crookshanks rubbing up against her calf, transferring her body heat into the muscle of Erin's leg.

"What am I going to do, Crooky?"

The cat merely purred again in response. Not surprising, but not quite the reaction that Erin was looking for. She rolled her eyes and continued to search in the closet, looking desperately for anything that could be considered 'nice'.

Her eyes stumbled upon something she hadn't worn in years. A knee length dress with a fitted bodice and a flared skirt in a deep shade of blue. She sighed with regret as she fingered the soft fabric. If it had been a year ago, she would have slipped the dress on with no hesitations, but she was a different person now. The scars on her legs were a tattoo of a time that she didn't care to remember. A few weeks after she was let out of the hospital after her return from Poland, she had made the mistake of going into the town centre wearing a pair of denim shorts, completely oblivious to any problems. She remembered as if it was yesterday, the looks that people gave her. Their eyes travelled to her thighs before her eyes, widening slightly as they took in the damage, then raising to her face in something akin to pity. That was the one thing she couldn't stand, their pity. A young boy had asked his mother 'What's wrong with that lady's legs?', and instead of giving him a proper answer, she had shooed him away with a red face and a glance at Erin that didn't meet her eyes.

She would do anything never to feel that exposed again.

Erin looked at the dress, running her eyes over the smooth fabric. She smiled to herself. She had an idea. Erin pulled out a thick pair of black tights from her drawer, thin enough to show the shape of her legs, but opaque enough to cover any visible scars.

She smiled to herself.

Perfect.

* * *

The door to Erin's room opened hesitantly, and she walked out slowly, her heels clicking loudly on the floor. Bucky looked up from his place on the couch and promptly stopped breathing. He didn't know what he had expected when he'd asked her to dress nice. Perhaps a pair of jeans and a classy top, just something slightly more fancy than her usual attire of grey sweatpants and black tank tops. What he hadn't been expecting was for her to walk out of her bedroom looking like _that._

Her blonde hair, usually in a simple ponytail, pulled back on her head for the sake of practicality was styled in soft curls around her pale face, falling just below her collarbones. It was amazing how much of a difference it made to her face. She looked kinder almost, her expression less stern and more gentle. Her deep brown eyes were lined with a think rim of kohl, making them stand out even more, and she had painted her full lips with a coat of red lipstick. Bucky was fixated by that mouth. The gentle slope of her cupid's bow, the plump, soft skin. His mind was on overdrive again, thinking about what a mouth like that could do.

He blushed, and tore his imagination away from such thoughts. Tonight wasn't about sex. It wasn't about seduction. Tonight was about Bucky regaining the trust of a woman he wanted to spend all the time he had with.

Bucky's eyes raised when he took in her outfit. She was clothed in a deep blue dress, contrasting beautifully with the pale skin of her neck and arms. It flared at her thin waist in silky pleats, ending just above her knee.

She looked like she's stepped straight out of Bucky's dreams. More specifically, the dream that he had found himself having more and more often recently, in which Erin was a girl from Brooklyn in the 40s, and had promised to wait for him when he went off to war. She was a vision.

She smiled self-consciously at him, and he let out a puff of air from his lips.

"Jeez Louise, Jefferson..." the words came out in almost a whisper, and Erin rolled her eyes, tugging the hem of her skirt further down her legs, covered by a second skin of black silk.

"You look like a million bucks," He admitted, almost to himself. Erin blushed, a surprisingly fetching colour on her, and Bucky shook himself out of his revere, taking a step forwards and extending his arm to her. She rolled her eyes at his chivalry but grabbed onto it regardless, her dainty fingers clutching the hem of his black v-neck sweater tightly. He could feel the pressure of her hand on his metal arm. Only pressure. No indication of the warmth that he knew would be leaching from her body into his, the arm didn't have sensors to pick that up.

"Are you going to tell me where we're going, Buck?"

He merely smiled conspiratorially and gestured for her to follow him out of the door silently. The corner of her mouth quirked upwards in a smirk as she shook her head at his unnecessary secrecy and followed along, allowing herself to be pulled out of the door. The night was chilly, and Erin's arms burst into goosebumps as soon as she stepped out of the flat doors. Bucky noticed immediately, and shook off his black jacket, wordlessly draping the warm fabric over her shoulders. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt underneath it, his metal arm still completely covered. She leaned slightly into the warmth.

"Bucky, you don't have to-"

"If I'm gonna do this, Jefferson," he looked down at her with a strange expression in his eyes, "I'm gonna do it properly."

He hooked his arm through hers and the pair of them walked along the deserted streets. He could tell that she was desperate to know where they were going, the scientist in her couldn't resist an unanswered question, but she kept silent, appearing happy enough to walk along with him in silence. He knew how they would look, the two of them arm in arm along the empty side of the street. A pair of young lovers, lost in each other.

He didn't mind.

He continued walking, following his nose. He had been walking earlier that evening, his head full of shouting voices, half telling him to keep going and never look back and the other half telling him to run back to Erin and never let go of her. He hadn't been looking where he was going, walking for the sake of walking, and eventually he had stumbled across something that had made him run back.

"A funfair?" Erin's voice was surprised as they rounded the corner and saw the bright flashing lights of the fair that had been temporarily installed at the corner of the busy street. It was busy with people, families and friends walking through the stalls with smiles on their faces and candyfloss in their hands. He looked down at her.

She was smiling back up at him, her eyes gleaming, and his heart leapt. This had been a good idea.

He grabbed her small hand in his much larger gloved one and walked forwards, pulling her along beside him. Here he was, walking through a fair surrounded by gaudy flashing lights and dancefloors. A beautiful girl on his hand, the smell of candyfloss thick in the air.

He felt like he was back in Brooklyn.

Her hand tightened in his as they took in the sights of their own small piece of paradise.

He felt like he was home.

"Alright, what first?" Bucky looked down at Erin with a gleam in his eyes, and she struggled to hide a smile at his obvious excitement. Who would have thought that an assassin would get so het up over cotton candy and brightly coloured flashing lights? She looked up at him and the corner of her mouth twitched into a smile.

"Your choice, Buck. This was _your_ idea."

He nodded at her response and gripped her hand in his metal one. She didn't think that she'd ever seen him this happy.

"I want to win you a teddy." Was his simple reply. He started forwards, tugging her along beside him until she was almost jogging to catch up with his long strides, his long legs reaching much farther than hers. It had been years since she had been to a place like this, but there was something about the bright lights and heavy scent of sugar in the air that put her at ease. That and the fact that her left hand was being gripped by the thick leather glove of a man she was beginning to trust with her life.

The pair reached the milk bottle stand together, and stood in the line that had formed in front of the jolly-looking stand manager, behind a young boy and his friends, each of them holding a pink cotton candy. There was a warmth radiating off Bucky that had nothing to do with his temperature. He seemed lighter somehow, as if in this moment, he had forgotten all of the shit that had happened to him. He squeezed Erin's hand slightly tighter, and she smiled to herself at the sensation.

The boy in front of them in the queue picked up a heavy-looking baseball and threw it with all his might at a pyramid of precariously balanced empty milk bottles, egged on by his friends beside him. His throw came just short, missing the bottles by a few inches.

"Sorry, Kid." Came the sympathetic response from the vendor, an overweight man with a large ginger beard and a kind face. Bucky let go of Erin's hand and walked up to the boy, putting his hand on his shoulder.

"You want me to win you one of those teddies?" Bucky asked, his New York accent ringing in the cold air. The boy beamed up at Bucky and nodded. He only looked about eight years old. Erin smiled to herself. If there was one thing that she hadn't been expecting, it was for Bucky to be good with children.

He handed the vendor a crisp dollar bill from his back pocket and took a hold of the baseball, rolling the soft fabric around inside the gloved hand of his metal arm. He looked at the target with a practiced eye and threw the ball almost nonchalantly. It landed square in the middle of the bottles, knocking them over easily. The boy actually squealed in joy, before taking his teddy and offering a 'Thanks a lot, Sir.' to Bucky as he walked away. The man turned to Erin, a gleam in his eye, and offered her his arm.

"Ma'am."

She rolled her eyes at the unnecessary formality, but grabbed his arm anyway as he paid another dollar, and once again easily knocked over the bottles, much to the amazement of the on-looking crowd. She leant up on her tiptoes and whispered in his ear.

"I knew all that HYDRA training would be good for something,"

He snorted out a laugh and shook his head imperceptibly.

"Do you want a unicorn or a giant stuffed seahorse?"

"Unicorn," Erin answered almost immediately. Bucky chuckled and took the large pink stuffed unicorn form the vendor, handing it to Erin with a smile on his face.

"There's something I want to do before we leave," He told her, his voice unusually serious. Erin readjusted her position, balancing the unicorn on her hip and looking up at him expectantly.

"I want to take you dancing."

She raised an eyebrow at the unexpected request.

"Bucky, I can barely walk in a straight line without assistance I don't want to be responsible for breaking every single one of your toes."

He grinned at her, flashing a row of straight white teeth, and held out his hand. She reluctantly took it, his skin much warmer than hers.

"It's all about the partner, Jefferson. I would like to say I'm quite the proficient dancer."

She pursed her lips in mock-suspicion, and rolled her eyes. She figured she was too far in to back down now.

"You know what, let's do it," She grinned, "But don't hold me to account when you can't walk for a week because I've stomped your toes off."

He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her over to a large tent, from which slow jazz music was playing. Erin could see, even from outside, the rhythmic moving of at least fifty couples swaying in time to the beat that was echoing around the night sky.

 _'You make me feel so young,_

 _You make me feel like spring has sprung.'_

"I love this song," Bucky smiled down at her. He placed her unicorn by the side of the dancefloor and pulled her forwards, until they were surrounded by couples that Erin was positive had much more rhythm than her.

"Do you relate to it?" Asked Erin in a cheeky voice, "I mean, you're what? A hundred?"

"Careful, Jefferson," He warned, but he was laughing at the same time, carefree. His hair had grown since she had met him, and it now tickled his broad shoulders

She felt a warm hand slide up her back and come to rest between her shoulder blades, long fingers spread over the thin fabric of her blue dress. Bucky's other hand, the one covered by a thick leather glove, grabbed hers with an urgency that she hadn't been expecting. They were so close that she could feel his heartbeat, chest to chest, the warmth of his torso making her breathing increase dramatically. Her mouth was dry. She didn't know what she had expected when he had asked her out, but it certainly hadn't been this. This was far more intimate than she was usually comfortable with.

He stepped to the side, and she followed suit clumsily, earning a small smirk from the corner of his mouth.

"I told you I was shit at this, Buck-"

"Shh." He whispered. They were so close that she could easily hear his voice over the live band, "Just feel the music."

She rolled her eyes but followed his instructions nonetheless, and somehow ended up not being entirely awful, much to her surprise. Over the course of the song, Bucky's hand travelled slightly lower until it rested on the small of her back, pulling her in tightly to him. There wasn't a slither of air between their bodies, moving rhythmically to the music. She looked up at him, and was surprised to see him looking back down at her with such a fervent intensity that it almost scared her. His blue eyes, those beautiful eyes that had seen so much, were fixed on hers like she was the most important thing in the world.

"Who'd have thought," she thought she heard Bucky mutter as the song ended, and the dancefloor erupted into applause. The pair of them didn't move, locked into one another as the band readjusted and started their next song.

 _'_ _You're just too good to be true  
I can't take my eyes off you  
You'd be like heaven to touch  
I wanna hold you so much  
At long last love has arrived  
And I thank God I'm alive  
You're just too good to be true  
Can't take my eyes off you'_

"Thank you, Erin." Bucky's voice was low, right in her ear, his hot breath tickling the sensitive skin. She snorted.

"What on Earth for, Barnes?"

"I feel like my old self again."

He moved back and looked down at her, swaying with the music, his eyes were twinkling.

"What?" She let out a laugh, "The Brooklyn Womanizer is back on the scene?"

He rolled his eyes and shook his head, his lips stretching back into a gleaming smile.

"Not like that," He explained, "I just… when I'm with you, I almost forget about it all."

She didn't need to ask what he meant, she understood it as well. For the last three months, she had felt as if she was a ghost in her own body. She went through the motions of each day, but she never really felt like she was comfortable. Weirdly enough, when she was with Bucky she felt much more like herself.

She tightened the hand holding his, and he smiled as he felt the pressure. She remember him once telling her that the metal arm was sensitive to touch, but not temperature. Hopefully, he couldn't tell how clammy her palm was either.

"Then you might as well stay,"

She raised her head to get a better look at him, and he tilted his head down, so his lips were practically touching hers. She could feel his warm breath on her face. The scent of mint and candyfloss.

"I might as well." His voice was low, but in their proximity she could hear it perfectly. He lent down further and touched his lips to hers. His hand moved from holding hers and instead came to rest behind her neck, threading through the hair at the back of her head. He used the pressure to pull her head back, giving him a better access to her mouth. The hand on her back tightened its grip, pulling her hips towards him. They kept dancing, locked to each other, their feet moving in time to the music. He weaved his tongue into her mouth and she smiled and responded in kind, placing her hand behind his head and playing with the stray hairs at the back of his neck. People were probably looking at them. She didn't give a shit, all she cared about was the way that Bucky's metal hand was now on the side of her face, cupping her jaw and turning her head, angling his mouth to hers once more. He was warm, solid. Erin couldn't shake the feeling that this was _right,_ she was exactly where she needed to be. The song drew to a close, and Bucky took a step back, his face red. He rubbed his hand with his jaw, embarrassed. She could tell that he hadn't meant for it to get that far.

"Sorry. I-" he began.

"Oh fuck off," Erin laughed, stepping forwards and bringing her lips back to him, cutting off his apology. She felt him smile.

Maybe there was a way that this could work out after all.

* * *

PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK


	26. Part Two: ten

Guess who's back... back again... shady's back... tell a friend...

* * *

There were many words that could be used to describe Colonel Stephen Pine, but 'patient' wasn't one of them. He let out an elongated sigh and sat further back in his seat, folding his large arms over his chest and looking over his desk at the man stood in front of him. He could literally see him shrink at the expression on Pine's face.

"So what you're telling me," Pine asked, his deep voice laced with contempt, "Is that you have no idea where he is and you came here just to waste my time?"

The man stood in his office cringed at the harsh tone of voice. He was in his mid-sixties, a ring of white hair around his head, with none on the top. His skin sagged like wet paper on his face, a sign of a hard life.

"There was a tracker installed in his arm, Sir," the older man tried to explain, "But it appears to not be working. He may have removed it himself."

A single tick eyebrow raised over Pine's cold, grey eye.

"And you didn't have measures in place to prevent it from being removed?"

The man stumbled over himself in an attempt to answer the question. He was skinny, but next to Pine's bulk looked almost emaciated in comparison.

"We… we did, Sir. We surrounded the chip with synthetic nerve-endings. It would have caused him great pain to take it out."

Pine raised an eyebrow.

"I'm talking about immense pain, Sir. The Soldier would have felt as if his arm were on fire."

"But he took it out anyway?" Pine asked.

The man was silent for a second, then nodded.

"It appears so, Sir."

"Get out of my sight,"

The man seemed almost too eager to collect his briefcase and flee from the room. As he shut the door behind him, Pine leant forward on the desk and put his head in his hands.

"Fuck…" the word was muttered out of his mouth, low enough for nobody to be able to hear it from outside. This wasn't what he had wanted. Ever since HYDRA had been compromised, he had been forced to go into hiding. He couldn't have stayed in Poland, obviously, as people now knew about the base there. At the moment he was holed up in some shithole in the middle of Turkey.

Ever since the day that blasted biochemist had escaped his clutches and turned his best Solider against him, everything had gone downhill. He had attempted to use the Soldier to take down Nick Fury so that HYDRA's agents could step in and take over SHIELD from the inside out. Instead, what had happened was that his best weapon had gone MIA, HYDRA had been uncovered and his boss, Alexander Pierce had been killed by the very man he had tried to have assassinated.

He had also, during the escapade lost his son.

James had always been a bit of a disappointment to the family, he couldn't deny that. At eighteen he had exclaimed to Stephen that he didn't want to follow the same life as his father. He had left the family, even gone as far as to change his surname to 'Goodwinson' to truly sever all ties. Of course, he had com crawling back when he had realised that he couldn't make much money as a freelance journalist. Pine had taken him back in on the condition that he join him in working for HYDRA.

The boy had always been soft. He should have known better than to send him in to talk to Jefferson. Pine had mistakenly assumed that it would toughen him up, to see her in such a state. In fact, it had done the opposite.

And then he had died.

There was a part of Pine that, despite knowing he was the one who dealt the deadly blow, blamed Jefferson for the death of his son. She corrupted him, turned him against the organisation.

It had been her fault.

The door to Pine's office burst open, and he straightened up immediately, surprised by the unexpected interruption. A tall man walked in in a fitted blue suit. His smart clothes and shining teeth looked out of place next to Pine's buzzcut hair and scarred face. This was a person he hadn't been expecting to see.

"Doctor Kennedy?"

The ageing psychiatrist was supposed to still be in America. He had been one of the only HYDRA agents to avoid detection and had been told to stay at his post. If he was here now, something must be very wrong.

"Pine." The man's voice was deep, throaty. He sounded tired.

"What the fuck are you doing here, David?"

He licked his lips nervously and shifted his feet on the floor before looking back up at Pine. His eyes were so dark they were almost black.

"I think I've found him."

Pine sat up in his seat, his eyes lighting up.

"Say that again."

Kennedy's mouth quirked up into a nervous smile.

"So you know how I was in conference with Jefferson?"

Pine nodded. Yes, he had known that. After the incident in Poland, Erin had been sent to a SHIELD psychiatrist for PTSD counselling. Luckily for him, that psychiatrist had been one that was in direct contact with him, a double agent.

"Well. I think he's staying with her."

"What?"

"She came to me a few weeks ago and told me she had a room-mate. Erin doesn't let anybody into her life, but she seems to really trust this man. It struck me as suspicious so I did some digging."

Pine raised a single eyebrow, but Kennedy continued, seeming to want to get all the information out.

"He's called James, apparently. She said she met him in Poland?"

A corner of the Colonel's mouth quirked up. He'd fucking found him.

"Erin's living in a small flat in the middle of Washington," Kennedy continued, but Pine raised his hand for silence. He was thinking. There was no way that he could catch The Soldier if he went straight after him, but if he used the girl…? That could work.

"What do you know about their relationship?" Pine enquired. When Erin had been in Poland, Bucky had been unexpectedly protective of her, up to the point where he had actually prevented Pine from hurting her on occasion. If he remembered any of that, his plan may work.

"She likes him." Kennedy said, "From what I can gather, she likes him a lot. She mentioned something about him relying on her…"

Perfect. Pine would have no chance in a confrontation against The Soldier. The man was a war machine, he could rip the Colonel to pieces in seconds. If he took Erin, however, he would have a bargaining chip.

"We've fucking got him."

* * *

AHA HERE BEGINS THE SHITSTORM PLEASE REVIEW


	27. Part Two: eleven

**As it was the final of GBBO today, I gave Mary Berry a cheeky mention in this chappy.**

Erin was woken by the sound of singing. Not very tuneful singing, granted, but singing nonetheless. She rolled her eyes and looked at the alarm clock on her dressing table. It was only half six in the morning, she didn't need to be out of bed for another half an hour.

The low voice travelled through the closed door of her bedroom and with it the unmistakable clanking sound of pots and pans.

 _'Sun in the sky, you know how I feel,_

 _Birds flying high, you know how I feel,_

 _Breeze drifting on by, you know how I feel...'_

Well, Bucky may never make a professional singer, his baritone voice warbled up and down in completely the wrong places, but Erin had to admit that it was a much nicer way to be woken up than by the incessant ringing of her alarm clock. She hopped out of bed and grabbed a hair tie from her dresser, throwing her hair up into a messy bun on top of her head. She stuck her feet into a pair of slippers and padded to the door, which she opened easily. She couldn't remember the last time that she had locked it.

Erin stood stock still and raised an eyebrow in disbelief at the scene in front of her. Bucky was stood in the small kitchenette, wearing a pair of low-hanging black cargo pants, a pink frilly apron and nothing else. He was focusing intently on the frying pan in front of him, in which Erin assumed a pancake was supposed to be cooking. It didn't look an awful lot like a pancake, and she was 98% sure she could smell burning, but she was too in shock to say anything. Bucky's shoulder-length hair, like Erin's, was messily tied up above his head with a black hair-tie, a few strands having fallen loose to frame his face.

Erin snorted out a laugh, and Bucky turned his head, surprised at the interruption. He smiled when he saw her.

"I didn't realise that 70 years under ice caused you to channel Mary Berry." Erin joked as she jumped up on the kitchen counter, letting her bare legs swing. Her scars were on show, raised lines of sensitive flesh protruding from her smooth skin like train tracks, but she couldn't find it in herself to care. She felt...

Happy.

"I have no idea what you just said," Bucky responded with a laugh, as he attempted to flip the pancake in the pan and succeeded only in accidentally folding it in half.

Erin jumped down from the counter and nudged him out of the way, using a spatula to unstick the quickly burning pancake from the pan and place it precariously on a plate on the side.

"Mary Berry is a famous cook, Buck," Erin explained, pouring another round of pancake batter into the pan and taking a step back, allowing Bucky to take over once again, "She specialised in cakes and stuff."

"I've never heard of her," Bucky responded as he started intently at the slowly cooking pancake on the stove.

"Yeah, you might not have, she's very English," Erin replied, taking her perch on the counter once more, "Have you ever heard of the Great British Bake Off? It's a television programme."

"Nope."

"Add it to your list."

Bucky let out a snort and continued to cook his pancakes in silence, humming quietly to himself. Erin poured herself a glass of water and sipped on it pensively, looking at him studiously. He seemed so different now than he had a few months ago. The tenseness from his shoulders hand gone, and she could see that the dark circles that had lined his eyelids for so long had almost disappeared. He seemed like a new man. If it wasn't for the shining metal arm which was connected to his tanned torso by a multitude of painful looking scars, she almost wouldn't have recognised him.

"What's the occasion?" She asked him, a smile on her face as he flipped the second pancake, this one slightly more successfully than the first. He raised an eyebrow by way of a question and she gestured to the stove and the apron, trying valiantly not to stare at his bare torso.

"I mean why the pancakes? Is today a special day?"

He smiled down at her, a smile that really reached his eyes.

"Do I need an occasion?" He asked.

She raised a brow.

"I guess not."

He shrugged simply, flipping the pancake onto the plate and covering up the first one, which looked more like a ball of blackened dough.

"I was gonna surprise you but then you woke up," He said, mock-accusatorially. Erin let out a burst of laughter.

"Your singing woke me up," she admitted, taking a pancake from the growing plate and pulling some syrup out of the cupboard, dousing it. She took a fork out of a drawer and sat back up on her spot on the counter, taking a bite, "mmm. S'good."

Bucky blushed slightly, "I didn't realise I was singing that loud, sorry."

"Nah, you weren't that bad," She laughed. To be true, he wasn't. He would never be Michael Buble, but he had a refreshing voice, crisp and clear, despite occasionally hitting the wrong note.

"I can't remember the last time I sang something," he mused as he flipped another pancake onto the pile, "I used to, a lot. Before-" He trailed off. Erin didn't need to ask him to finish the sentence, she understood perfectly.

"I only really sing when I'm happy,"

She smiled at him, "And are you happy now?"

He leant over to her and brushed his lips against hers in a peck. He tasted of syrup and coffee. She smiled at him. She hadn't known what to expect after going to bed last night, the night of the fairground ride, the night when Bucky had kissed her. She had thought there may have been a bit of awkwardness, a slight embarrassment around the flat, but she couldn't have been further from the truth. It felt completely natural. The pair seemed to move about each other like flowing water, effortless.

"Immeasurably."

Parked opposite Erin's flat building was a white van. It looked inconspicuous enough, the words 'Eric Wright's Painting and Decorating' were emblazoned on the side in gaudy red paint. What was actually inside the van, however, was a far cry from painting and decorating supplies. It actually held two HYDRA agents, one man and one woman, who were watching the door to the flat intently. At exactly twenty-three minutes past seven, Erin Jefferson walked out of the double doors, satchel on her shoulder and set off to work.

Agent Rhodes, a short, balding man with wisps of grey hair picked up a disposable phone and pressed speed-dial, lifting the phone to his ear and hearing it crackle to life.

"Yes?" The voice was that of Stephen Pine.

"She has exited the building. Only the Soldier remains."

He could almost hear Pine nodding in understanding on the other end of the receiver.

"We have no chance of taking The Soldier out," Pine mused, his voice crackly on the phone. He was still in Turkey, still holed up in some bunker somewhere. He had sent Agent Rhodes and Agent Jackson, a tall woman with carefully manicured nails and a short brunette bob haircut, to act as recon officers for Jefferson's house.

"What we're going to have to do is wait until Jefferson is in there alone, then we can take her with the least amount of collateral damage."

Jones nodded in understanding.

"So you want me to keep watch and inform you when she's in there on her own?"

"Yes." Pine confirmed, "The Soldier will be jumpy, make sure you don't give him a reason to suspect you."

Jones nodded.

"Yes, Sir."

He hung up the phone and looked over at Jackson, who was absent-mindedly picking the grime out of her nails, watching as Jefferson's blonde ponytail swung as she walked off into the distance.

"He wants us to call him when she's alone in the flat," Jones explained, and Jackson nodded wordlessly. She understood.

Erin was the weak link. She was the one they were going to use to get The Soldier back.

 **REVIEW yo**


	28. Part Two: twelve

Erin got home a lot earlier than she expected. After a long day's work involving avoiding Daveed, she still felt like he was slightly annoyed at her after standing him up last month, she had been slightly reluctant to go to Dr Kennedy's session. She was exhausted, and in all honesty, just wanted to get home and snuggle up on the couch with her cat. And Bucky... mostly Bucky...

When she got to his office, however, she was surprised to see that nobody was there. His entire flat was completely deserted, even his furniture had gone. She had phoned him multiple times, but the phone company had had contact connecting her to his mobile. It was almost as if it had been disconnected.

Weird.

Anyway, she had left the flat much earlier than she usually would, and set off straight back home. she stopped off at a cafe to buy a black coffee, Bucky's favourite, as a thank you present for the slightly burnt pancakes that she had been blessed with that morning. As always, she was out of breath by the time that she had walked up all three flights of stairs. She burst through the door and noticed Bucky sitting on the couch, a small book in his hand.

She knew instantly that something was wrong.

His face had lost all of the easy-going comfort that it had had that morning. The security seemed to have gone from his eyes and was replaced by an agonisingly familiar blank stare. His shoulders were raised in a tense position, and even under the thin black T-shirt that he was wearing, she could tell that he was sat too rigidly. Her heart dropped. He didn't look like her friend.

He looked like the Winter Solider.

"Bucky?" She warily asked, taking a step inside. He looked up from the small book, his eyes dead.

"Who?"

Her eyes glanced down at the book he was holding, and her heart skipped a beat. Shit. The book was the small leather notepad that she had used to jot down her findings on how Bucky responded to the serum. This was bad. This was very bad.

"Bucky, let me explain-"

" _Bucky?_ " he cut her off, his voice filled with something that she hadn't heard before. It was more than anger. It was _rage_. "Or 'the subject'?"

She took another step inside, and he shot up off the couch with such speed that Erin barely saw it. He was actually shaking he was so angry. He picked up the book and opened it, reading out loud from the page.

"The subject was initially apprehensive but appears to be responding to verbal stimulation. Serum worked at 5mg diluted in 100ml solvent, desired results. The subject remembered various details of his previous life, including his name and previous relationships. Experiment called off after 5 questions as the subject showed levels of stress."

Erin knew what the notebook said, she had written it herself and reread it many times, but that didn't stop her from cringing when she heard it said aloud. The unemotional tone was almost painful.

"Bucky, I'm a scientist, that's how we do things-" She tried to explain herself, but he cut her off again, reading a passage from later on in the journal. He was walking towards her, his gait cat-like.

"The subject has appeared to make romantic advances towards me, though whether due to actual feelings or some sort of stockholm dynamic I'm not sure. I reciprocated enough to avoid giving a sense of rejection-"

"Stop." Erin said, not wanting to hear any more. Bucky threw the book to the table with such force that a glass standing on it was knocked over. He was fuming.

"The subject, is that how you see me?"

"Buck, listen-"

"Don't fucking _'Buck'_ me, Jefferson. I've read the whole of this thing. I know what you think about me."

"Bucky, you need to understand. I'm a scientist. I always have been. It's all I know how to be," she was yelling now, desperate to explain herself, "I have to record the stuff that I do, it's how I work."

"Do you see me as just another fucking experiment, Jefferson?" He was seething, a muscle in his jaw twitching as he yelled. He was stood right in front of her, his chest rising and falling with deep angry breaths.

"Of course not-"

"Then why the fuck did you write that stuff?"

He took a step back and rubbed his face with his hand.

"I thought you were different."

Those words cut through her like no others had, a shard of ice ran through her spine.

"What do you mean?"

"The Subject, The Soldier, you're all the fucking same. I'm not a real person to you, just a machine."

"Bucky, you know that's not true..."

"Do I?" He was shouting again, "Did you even feel anything when I kissed you or was it just another fucking variable in your investigation?"

"Of course I felt something," she replied, hurt that he would even think that of her. She had felt more than something, she had felt like her whole body was on fire when he had kissed her, every trace of his fingers leaving burns on her skin. That wasn't something that she could say out loud, though.

Bucky stopped for a second in thought, then asked her, "Why did you help me?"

She quirked an eyebrow in confusion at his unexpected question.

"What do you mean?"

"Did you help me because you wanted to? Or did you do it because you wanted a fucking Nobel Prize?" The venom in his voice was tangible. "Don't you dare lie to me, Erin."

She took a deep breath and thought to herself. She knew the answer, but she also knew what Bucky wanted to hear. The two things didn't quite coincide. He would tell if she was lying, though. The guy had worked as a spy for almost a decade, he knew the signs. She took a deep breath and looked him in the eyes.

"A bit of both."

He let out a sigh and shook his head.

"Wrong answer, Jefferson."

He pushed past her and walked out of the door, setting off down the stairs.

"Wait, where are you going?"

"I need some time, Erin. Don't follow me."

She tried to say something, anything in an attempt to get him to stay, but it was too late. He'd already disappeared from view.

"Shit," she muttered, closing the door and walking back into the empty silence of the room. It suddenly seemed far too big. She glanced at the table, with it's knocked over glass and the leather book placed almost carelessly on the side of it.

"Shit."

AAAHA SORRY but also erin is now ALONE IN THE FLAT WE ALL KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT AND LIKE X


	29. Part Two: thirteen

He hated her.

He loved her.

He hated her.

He loved her.

He couldn't make his fucking mind up.

The only light in the street came from the waning moon and the flickering streetlamps above Bucky's head as he strode purposefully through the dark streets of Washington DC. He didn't know where he was going, he just knew that he had to keep moving.

He _knew_ that he shouldn't have gone snooping in her room, but he had been curious. He'd wanted to learn more about the woman who had helped him get his life back. He had done recon missions before, he knew the kind of stuff he would find. He stumbled across childhood photos and letters from her brother in Scotland in her cupboard, and when he'd found the small leather notebook he had mistakenly assumed it had been a diary of some sort. He'd felt guilty opening it, of course, but the feeling had been overpowered by his curiosity. He'd wanted to know if she'd written anything about him inside it. That was his first mistake.

He knew by the first page that he was dead wrong.

'CLASSIFIED. FOR S.H.I.E.L.D. EYES ONLY

MFCTS TRIAL AND PRODUCTION

CHEMIST - Erin Jefferson: S.H.I.E.L.D. ID - BC-00778'

The writing was in block capitals in Erin's untidy handwriting. There had been a small flower doodled into the bottom left-hand corner, and for some reason, Bucky had thought it a good idea to keep reading. The first ten pages had been full of unintelligible writing. Chemical formulas and named elements, numbers and symbols that Bucky didn't even understand. Erin was incredibly intelligent, there was no denying that. The next few pages had documented the initial testing process, the rats and mice that the serum had been given to, as well as the first human test.

There was then a blank page, and a new section added:

'MFCTS SUBJECT TEST

JAMES BUCHANNAN (BUCKY) BARNES alias THE WINTER SOLDIER'

That had piqued his curiosity, but his heart sank as soon as he had read the first sentence.

'Subject came to me asking for help, appears to have no recollection of previous life. MFCTS may assist in retrieval of lost memories.'

The tone had been emotionless, purely scientific. When he had confronted her about it, he had been hoping that she would say something to make him feel better. Tell him that she had only written it for scientific purposes, and she really did have feelings for him.

Instead she had clamped up completely.

He shook his head to himself and continued walking, pushing his hands into his pockets. He was confused.

He hated her.

He loved her.

Fuck.

Half of him wanted to never see her again, and the other half of him... Well. The other half of him wanted to hold her and never let her go, feel her skin under his hands, her lips on his. The other half of him wanted to sit up for hours talking to her, drinking in every detail of her life, every smile, every laugh. The other half of him wanted to bury his head between her thighs until she was shaking and every person in that goddamn block of flats knew his name.

He blushed red at the thought, but his mind didn't stop wandering. He recalled the night that he had taken her to the fairground, the night that he had kissed her whilst they were dancing. The feel of her firm body under his hands had made him want to do things that he hadn't done in a long time. A _long_ time. He had stayed awake the whole of that night, his mind working far too fast on the possibilities.

He let out an elongated sigh and stopped walking, taking a deep breath. He was being stupid, running off instead of facing his problems head on. He wasn't about to throw away the best thing in his life because of a misunderstanding.

He was going to go back, and he was going to talk to her. Properly talk to her, face to face. They were going to sort this out.

He set off at a jog, heading back to her flat. He was going to find a way to work this out.

* * *

"Shit."

Erin walked over to her room and peeled off her work clothes, slipping into something a bit more comfortable, a black tank top and grey set of briefs. She picked up her journal and looked through it, a sense of dread in her gut as she read through her writing. It was so impersonal, so harsh. She remembered writing the bit about his romantic advances, the night that he had kissed the tear from her face.

She would never forget the expression he had given her when he had read that passage out loud. He had looked broken.

She ripped a blank page out from the book and grabbed the nearest pen, scribbling hastily. If he came back whilst she was at work tomorrow, she wanted him to come back to an apology at least. She left the note tucked inside the journal and placed it on the mantlepiece, somewhere that she knew he would see it, then she got herself a large glass of whiskey and downed it in one, feeling the hot liquid burn her throat. She got another one and went to sit on her couch, joined quickly by Crookshanks, who sat next to her bare leg, purring. She felt a little jealous. Crooky didn't have to worry about anything other than when her next meal was, it must be easy.

She took a sip of her second whiskey, already feeling the first one going to her head. She had work tomorrow, this was a bad idea, but somehow, she couldn't find it in herself to stop.

She let out a deep sigh and sunk further into the couch, when she heard the unmistakeable sound of her door opening. Her heart leapt. He'd come back.

She jumped up from her space, her head spinning slightly from the alcohol, and turned around, a grin on her face.

"Bucky, I'm so sorr-"

She stopped in her tracks, heart dropping to her feet as she saw a man in front of her who was definitely not Bucky. He was shorter and broader, wearing black cargo pants and a bulletproof vest, a heavy-looking gun in his hand. The unmistakeable red insignia of HYDRA was sewed to his left sleeve.

"Oh, fuck." Erin muttered. She took a step backwards, and he took a step forwards, flanked by a soldier on either side.

Erin sprinted to the kitchenette and picked a thick steak knife out of her cutlery drawer, wielding it in fear.

"Stay back,"

The man at the front rolled his eyes in amusement.

"No Winter Soldier to protect you now, Jefferson."

Her eyes widened in surprise, as she took another step backwards, the hand holding the knife shaking.

"How did you know?"

He let out a chuckle at her confusion, "You really should think more carefully about who you divulge information to, Erin." His voice was impossibly low, a resonating baritone in the small room, "Your psychiatrist was very interested to tell us all about your new bunk buddy."

"Dr. Kennedy?" Erin couldn't believe it. The man that she had trusted with her deepest secrets, who she had thought was always there for her. He was a double agent?

"Bingo." He smiled, a grimace that didn't reach his eyes, "Now how about we put that knife down?"

"How about you go fuck yourself." She replied, holding the knife out further in front of her. He laughed at her bravado.

"He'll be back soon, you know," She tried desperately to convince them, "The Winter Soldier. He'll be back in a few minutes, you guys should be careful."

"He didn't look like he was coming back when he stormed out of here about five minutes ago," The man continued. He raised his gun, and Erin's heart thudded in her chest. He didn't believe her.

"I'm serious," she brandished the knife, as the other two men walked forwards to her, one on either side, "Stay back,"

There was a flash of pain in her right shoulder and she dropped the knife, sending it crashing to the floor with a loud noise. The first man put his gun back in his pocket, a smile on his face.

"Fuck," Erin hissed the word out through her teeth, her shoulder on fire. He had _shot_ her? She raised her hand to her shoulder and it came away covered in red blood.

"Colonel Pine will be happy to see you," The original man stated, as he raised a different gun, a slightly smaller one. He pulled the trigger, and Erin felt a stinging pain in her neck, followed by an intense wave of nausea. Her vision blurred, and she felt her knees buckle underneath her as she fell to the floor.

"Bucky," The word slipped out of her mouth as she jarred her shoulder painfully on impact.

Everything went black.

 **AAAAAAY LMAO REVIEW PLEASE**


	30. Part Two: fourteen

Bucky knew that something was wrong before he even opened the door. It was too quiet inside, much too quiet. Usually, he was able to hear Erin pacing around, listening to music, but there was no noise at all from inside her little flat. His heart skipped a beat and he reached into his waistband, pulling out the semi-automatic pistol he always kept there. Yes, he hadn't been The Winter Soldier in a long time, but that didn't mean that he was able to give up his old habits easily.

A quick glance at the door told him that he was right in his suspicions. It was slightly off the latch, only a few millimetres ajar, but enough to hint to Bucky that something was up. He had closed the door when he had left. That either meant that Erin had gone out, something that he thought highly improbable, or the much worse option.

Somebody else had come in.

He burst through the door, pushing it open with his shoulder, his gun up and ready, but was greeted by an empty room. He glanced around him for warning signs, and realising that there were none, placed his gun back in his waistband and looked around himself. Everything seemed slightly too ordinary. Erin's hideously floral couches still hadn't moved from their place in front of the small television, and her papers and books were just as strewn across the wooden table as they always were. Crookshanks sat on top of a thesaurus, asleep.

Bucky bit his lip and looked up to the mantlepiece. Her notebook was still there, right in full view. That surprised him. He would have thought that she would try to hide it, perhaps even get rid of it after their fight, but there it was, staring him right in the face.

He walked over to it and picked it up, already hating himself for what he was going to do. He needed to stop this masochism, he should just let it go and forget about it, but there was a part of him that wanted to keep reading. He had only got about half way through her journal by the time she interrupted him. He was curious as to what else she said.

He picked the journal up from the mantle and was surprised when a loose piece of paper fell out of it and dropped to the floor. He quirked his eyebrow in confusion and bent down to pick it up, unfolding at and squinting at the familiar handwriting. It was a letter. A letter to _him?_

 _'Bucky,_

 _I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry I don't know if words can even make it up. I know what my writing must have seemed like to you, impersonal and cold. And I admit, it was. Initially._

 _I've been obsessed with my work my whole life, through school and college and University, and then my time at SHIELD, so when I got the opportunity to work on the serum with you, I jumped at it. I can admit now that it was for selfish reasons. I was curious as to how it would work, and I admit that I was more interested in finding more out than I was in helping you at first._

 _Somewhere along the line, though, that changed. The lines between work and feelings became confusingly blurred._

 _I like you, Bucky. More than I should. More than I'm comfortable with. Much more than I'm used to. I think that was the reason my writing was so harsh. I didn't know what was going on, so I reverted to what I'm most comfortable with so I didn't have to deal with my feelings._

 _Hard facts._

 _I'm sorry, Bucky. I'm a bit out of my depth here. It's easier for me to write stuff down than say it out loud so I'm just going to go for it, and if I'm totally off the mark, don't hate me, OK?_

 _I think I love you._

 _Erin'_

He read the letter again, and again, boring the words into his mind. She _loved_ him? That was unexpected, but he couldn't help the small bubble of fire that stuck in his throat at the phrase. It seemed so natural, jotted down in her scruffy black script. Like breathing.

So where the fuck was she?

He folded the paper and placed it in his pocket carefully, putting the journal back on the shelf he picked it up from.

"Erin?"

There was no answer. He hadn't expected there to be, but the sense of dread still climbed up into his stomach. Something had happened here, he was sure of it. He took a step forwards, aiming to walk into her room and see what he could find in there when he spotted something that made his heart skip a beat.

There was a red spot on the linoleum floor of the kitchenette, and next to it, a carelessly dropped steak knife. He strode towards it and bent down. Blood. Definitely blood. He felt sick with guilt. He had left and she had been hurt, this was his fault, definitely. On the counter next to an unopened box of Lucky Charms was a single white envelope with the words 'For The Eyes Of The Soldier' printed in block capitals on the front of it. He picked it up and ripped it open, pulling out the letter inside. It was an A4 sheet of paper, neatly folded, with on sentence printed on it in black ink.

 **'Let's finish this where we started it.**

 **Pine.'**

So the Colonel was behind this, that wasn't much of a surprise. But to finish where he started, surely he didn't mean Poland? The base in Krakaow had been dissolved along with most of HYDRA after the SHIELD exposure. Bucky didn't think there was even anybody left there, but it was the only place that made sense. He took out his phone and hastily typed a number into it, bringing it up to his ear and trying to stop his hand from shaking. He knew Pine well enough, and he knew for certain that if he had Erin, he wouldn't be going easy on her. The mental image of her tied up again on that fucking chair, completely at Pine's mercy. It was too much for him to handle. He tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for the answer on the other side.

"Buck?"

He exhaled in relief at Steve's voice.

"They have Erin."

"Bucky," Steve replied, hearing the panic in his friend's tone, "What happened."

Bucky ran his hand through his hair in panic, walking around the room.

"HYDRA. They were in here. They took her."

He could almost hear Steve thinking on the other side of the phone.

"I'll be over as fast as I can. I have a few friends who may be able to help."

HYDRA were fast, and they were cunning, but they were expecting Bucky to be on his own. They were expecting him to come alone, and that was his biggest advantage right now.

* * *

Erin's shoulder was on fire. She didn't know where she was, or what time it was, all she knew was that she was in pain. A lot of it.

She couldn't open her eyes. Something heavy and black was tied tightly to her face, preventing her from seeing anything, but she could make out the steady dripping of a nearby leaky tap, as well as, even more frighteningly, the infrequent clearing of someone's throat. That meant that somebody was in here with her.

She was sitting on an uncomfortable chair, her arms tied painfully behind her back, jarring her sore shoulder. She tried to move her legs and gave up when she realised that they were also tied down, strapped to the front legs of the chair with what felt like heavy duty velcro.

She rolled her eyes but realised that nobody could see her under the mask.

"Is this a Febreeze commercial?"

She was well aware that this was far more serious than a Febreeze commercial. She just wanted to let whoever was in the room know that she was awake.

And that she was pissed.

She heard a horribly familiar chuckle, and a set of footsteps walk towards her before the blindfold was ripped off her face, leaving her squinting in the too-bright lights of the room. All she could see was white for a few seconds, but as her eyes adjusted to the light, a figure began to form in front of her. A hulking figure with a thin but profound scar down one side of his face. Her heart fell.

Pine.

"I see you haven't learnt how to respect authority?" He asked her, his eyebrow twitching up in a show of amusement. She let out a scoff, trying not to show how frightened she was. She had been taken before Bucky had come back to the house. Would he have returned yet? Would he even know that she was gone?

"I see you still haven't got the decorators in," Erin responded, every small movement that she made causing her shoulder to move and a sharp burst of pain to shoot through her arm. She looked around herself dramatically. She couldn't tell if she was in the same room that she had been in last time, but it was certainly similar. The damp on the walls, the grey floors and grey walls. Even the revolting mattress in the corner. "You'll never make an interior designer, Pine."

He smiled and stood up to his full height, towering over Erin so much that it was almost comical.

"I've missed you."

He put his hand on her shoulder, her sore one, and she let out a hiss of pain through her teeth. Pine raised an eyebrow in mock surprise.

"Oh. Does that hurt?"

He pushed his thumb inside the hole the bullet made, twisting it and causing Erin to scream out loud as her shoulder set on fire. He removed his hand and chuckled to himself, leaving her gasping. She felt a warm liquid trickle down her arm. Pine turned his back on her and walked to the door, looking behind himself as he closed it.

"It's nice to have you staying with us again, Miss Jefferson."

* * *

SHIT SHIT AAHAHAH AHA HA H HHA im hyperventilating please like and comment it means a lot.


	31. Part Two: fifteen

**Hello there. I'm not a big ranter, but there is something I would like to say. I get absolutely nothing for writing this story, other than the enjoyment of writing and the lovely reviews you guys give me. I update pretty regularly (usually at least once every 10 days) and it really upsets me when I get reviews like 'this chapter is too short it should be longer' or 'make your chapters longer'. My Chapters are the length that they are for a reason. When I write a chapter, I get everything I want in it. To add more stuff just for the sake of filling out words is going to decrease the quality of my story.**

 **ANYWAY**

 **RANT OVER**

 **HERE IS YOUR NEW CHAPTER Hope you enjoy.**

James Buchannan Barnes didn't know what to expect from the house of Tony Stark, a man so hideously wealthy that everybody in America knew his name. He had anticipated extravagance, but he had never imagined anything of this monstrous size. The elevator alone was the size of a comfortable family room and was coated in a pristine mirror that shone his astonished reflection back at his face from every angle.

"Close your mouth, Buck," Steve placed a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder, "You'll catch flies."

Bucky rolled his eyes at Steve's jibe, but closed his mouth anyway, wringing his hands together in front of him nervously. Steve had got to Erin's flat within ten minutes and immediately phoned Stark. Before he had a chance to explain their predicament, Tony had instructed them to come to Stark Tower and speak to him personally. Apparently he 'didn't like being told things over the phone.'

Bucky already hated him.

The pair had driven the supposedly four-hour journey from Washington DC to the centre of New York in under two and had practically sprinted to the tower. They weren't sure what to expect from Stark, he had the tendency to only help with things if they somehow benefited him in the long run. Bucky supposed he would just have to try to convince him. He could be very convincing at times.

He clenched his fist as the elevator stopped and an incredibly well-elocuted voice spoke through the microphone system at them.

"Mister Rogers, Mister Barnes. Tony Stark will see you now."

"Thank you, Jarvis."

Bucky raised an eyebrow at Steve as they walked out into a large room, furnished with uncomfortable-looking metal furniture.

"Jarvis?"

Steve hid a snort.

"You get used to it." He placed his hands in his pockets as he walked forwards.

"Tony!"

Bucky looked up at the direction Steve shouted and saw a man walking towards them. He was surprisingly short, given the seemingly natural confidence he exuded as he strode towards them, hands in his pockets. He was wearing loose fitting dark jeans and a faded Rolling Stones T-shirt, a light blue circle of light glowing from his chest.

Bucky had done his research, he knew what _that_ was.

"Capsicle," Tony greeted Steve like an old friend, clapping him on the shoulder and smiling. Bucky, on the other hand, he looked at with ice.

"This is the infamous 'Winter Soldier'?"

Bucky tensed up. He hadn't heard that name in a while, but it still sent a shard of ice down his spine.

"I don't do that stuff anymore," he responded coolly, staring deep into Tony's eyes, brown on blue. Tony was the first to look away, and it gave him a small sense of pride.

Stark turned around and walked away from them, gesturing them to follow.

"So what's up?"

The billionaire plonked himself down on a chair and picked a tumbler of whisky off the table in front of him, pouring himself a large glass and leaning back as he took a deep sip. Steve took a seat as well, but Bucky remained stood. He was too uptight to sit, too worried. It had been at least four hours since he had discovered Erin missing. With the technology that HYDRA possessed, it wasn't beyond imagination to think that she had already reached Poland. Every second counted.

"Erin Jefferson has been kidnapped by HYDRA." Steve's voice rang out in the large room, and Bucky tried to avoid flinching at the mention of her name. This was all his fault. If he had never turned up in her life, none of this would have happened.

Tony took another sip of his drink and pulled a face.

"Erin Jefferson? The name sounds familiar. Did I sleep with her?"

Bucky's metal hand clenched into a fist at the nonchalant tone of Tony's voice, his heart rate raising. He took a step forward but was stopped by Steve's hand on his shoulder. Ever the pacifist, Steve always had a tendency to stop fights.

"She was a biochemist back at SHIELD. Synthesised MFCTS."

Tony's eyebrows raised in surprise.

"Truth serum girl?"

Steve nodded and Bucky breathed through his mouth slowly, trying to calm down. He didn't like being in enclosed spaces, and despite the size of Stark's room, he still felt slightly trapped. Steve noticed his tension and rubbed him reassuringly on the shoulder in an attempt to calm him down.

"How long has she been missing?" All the joking was gone from Stark's face, replaced by a mask of pure concentration.

"Four or five hours," Bucky interjected, pulling up a chair and finally sitting down on it, his shoulders still tense. His brain had been on overdrive since he had discovered she was missing, imagining things that didn't do his already nervous countenance any good. He remembered what had happened to her there last time. Even if he didn't, the scars on her thighs that he occasionally got a glimpse of were enough of a reminder. He would give anything to exchange his place for hers, let himself be beaten and bruised instead, but that wasn't possible.

"Do you know where they're holding her?" Tony was looking him dead in the eyes. Bucky nodded. The letter from Pine had told him.

"Poland. There's a base just outside Krakow."

Tony nodded thoughtfully, and sat back in his chair, downing the last of his whisky.

"Jarvis?" He spoke out loud. Bucky looked around them. They were alone in the room, who on Earth was he talking to?

"Yes, Sir?"

Bucky jumped in his seat as the voice came from seemingly nowhere, and he noticed the corner of Tony's lip twitch upwards as he saw. He resisted the overpowering urge to punch him right in his smug face.

"Patch me onto the big guy,"

There was a silence in the room, almost deafening before it was filled with the unmistakable sound of a phone dialling.

"Hello?" A deep man's voice came in through the speakers. Tony smiled.

"Bruce?" He spoke out loud. Bucky looked over at Steve in confusion, and the blonde merely raised an eyebrow. The technology nowadays was certainly much different from what the two of them had been used to when they were younger.

"Erin Jefferson has been kidnapped."

Bucky's jaw clenched as he heard the words, a muscle in his cheek jumping. It was like every time they were said out loud, it just became that much more real.

"What? What happened?" The sound of Bruce's voice had a hint of panic to it. He obviously knew Erin well.

"HYDRA took her, she's somewhere in Poland, apparently."

"Fuck..." Was the muttered reply, probably said quietly by Bruce, but echoing loudly in the large room.

"Can you get here as soon as you can?" Tony asked.

"Of course, of course," Bruce answered. Bucky could hear the shuffling of movement on the other side of the phone, "New York?"

"Yep."

"I'm on my way."

* * *

There was a cut on the side of Erin's forehead that was bleeding down the side of her pale face, the droplet nearing her mouth. Stephen Pine looked down at her with a mixture of irritation and respect. He shook his fist, still stinging slightly from his last punch.

"You're surprisingly sturdy for such a small person." He muttered to himself as she looked up at him, hatred in her brown eyes, "I can see what Barnes saw in you."

Her eyes flashed when he mentioned the Soldier's name, absolute fury.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

He tutted at her and shook his head, walking around the chair until he was behind her. They were alone together in the room. Pine had sent the other men out, wanting to have a real heart to heart with Erin. He knew that she would deny knowing anything about The Soldier, but he needed as much information as he could gather. Anything that he could use against him when he found the note and headed to Poland would be useful.

"Ah, let's agree not to lie, huh, Erin?" Pine leant down so he was behind her, breathing down her neck. He felt her stiffen up.

"We wouldn't want you to get hurt now, would we?" He took the tip of his finger and traced a line from her ear down her neck to her shoulder, her bare skin cool but clammy.

"Get your fucking hands off me," there was a bite of poison in her voice.

He chuckled and stood up, walking back around to face her.

"Tell me what I want to know or it won't just be my hands you have to worry about."

She took in the threat in silence, knowing exactly what Pine meant. He couldn't help the slight jolt o satisfaction as he saw her eyes widen in fear. She took a deep breath.

"There's a lot of men in this building, Erin," He continued, picking his nails absent-mindedly, "A lot of guys who haven't seen a woman in a long time. A _long_ time."

"You don't frighten me."

That was a lie, he could tell by the was her bottom lip shook slightly as she spoke. The middle finger of her right hand was tapping out a fast rhythm on the arm of the chair it was strapped to.

"Of course I do." He leant forwards, looking her in the eye, "Now tell me about the Solider."

"He'll come for me, you know." there was a sense of belief in her voice. A conviction that led way to absolute certainty. "He'll come here."

Pine raised an eyebrow at her and smiled, his lip curling back over his teeth, the scar on his face twisting with it.

He pulled back his fist and brought it forwards again, this time, sinking it deep into her stomach. He felt a crack, and Erin let out a deep huff, bending forwards and taking ragged breaths. He'd broken a rib, he could feel it.

"Oh Erin," He said, his voice like honey, "That's what we're counting on.

 **AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH PLEASE REVIEW OOH BOY THIS IS GETTING EXCITING**


	32. Part Two: sixteen

**My apologies I had a bit of a Chrimbo Break (TM) but here I am, returned and at least 5 stone heavier (blame the twiglets) to cause you all the more angst. If you're following this story and enjoying, please leave a vote or a comment to let me know :)**

Bucky kept checking the watch on his wrist every four or five minutes. He knew that it wasn't going to make the time go any faster, but he hated just sitting there. With every second that passed, Erin was being tortured. He knew it, and he couldn't do anything about it. The knowledge dug through his gut like a bullet, fast and excruciating.

It had been a long time since he had been in an aircraft, a much longer time since he had been in one that didn't bear a blood-red HYDRA insignia. Tony Stark was a rich man, a man who could afford anything he had a fancy for, so Bucky shouldn't have been surprised when he was led to a heli-carrier with a similar level of technology as the ones he had used to fly back when he was The Soldier. The carrier was large and fast, and had more than enough room to sit Tony, Steve and himself. And another person.

The 'big guy' that Stark had telephoned during their conversation about Erin had turned out to be a rather timid-looking physicist, Doctor Bruce Banner, who looked as if he would be more suited to a laboratory than to fighting crime. He had voiced his concerns to Steve who had replied with a cryptic:

"Don't judge a book by its cover."

Bucky seriously doubted that Banner would be able to fight off a strong cold, let alone a barrage of HYDRA agents, but he stayed quiet, not wanting to start a fight. Banner, on the other hand, had been looking at Bucky with barely concealed hatred during their entire journey. His thick black curly hair fell down over his bespectacled eyes, dark and brooding. The heli-carrier which held the four men was fast, even faster than the advanced tech they had at HYDRA, and Stark had promised that they would reach Poland within 3 hours. That was 3 hours too long for Bucky.

And so he sat, anxiously checking his watch, his metal fist clenching and unclenching unconciously as he imagined himself burying it into Pine's face the next time he saw him. The whole atmosphere was tense, and not just due to the fear coursing through Bucky's body at the knowledge that anything that was done to Erin would be his fault.

The air crackled with electricity as Banner glared literal daggers at Bucky, his arms wrapped around each other, knuckles white. He had never met the man before but had assumed he had been one of Erin's scientist friends, back when she had worked for SHIELD. A friend who probably hated Bucky's guts for coming back into Erin's life uninvited and royally fucking everything up.

"Tell me about the compound." The metallic-sounding voice came from Stark, who had suited up into his Iron Man outfit and was sat at the front of the jet, controlling it's steady flight, bringing Bucky out of his daze.

"What?" Bucky's voice was throaty from lack of sleep, and he cleared it with a quiet cough.

"This compound in Krakow," Tony explained, "We need to know as much about it as we can before we get in there. It would give us an advantage."

Bucky nodded and stood up, glad to be of some assistance finally, even if it was just to explain the layout of the HYDRA Base. He smiled to himself silently, if someone would have told him that his time in HYDRA would have actually been useful a week ago, he would have laughed in their face. Or punched them in the gut.

He walked up to Tony and sat in the seat next to him, looking out of the window with a blank expression. It was nearly morning, the too-bright sun already rising above the horizon, basking the sea in a glow of burnt orange. He heard Banner mutter something under his breath to Steve behind him, and the blonde respond with a curt whisper. He tried to ignore the feeling that they were talking about him.

"The Base itself is large," Bucky began, searching in his mind for the information he needed, "At least a kilometre squared area-wise."

He heard an annoyed sigh from behind him and clenched his fist again. It wasn't _his_ fault that the Base was so large.

"But I'm pretty sure Erin will be in the East wing, that's where the prisoners are usually kept. The rest of the building is used for research and training."

Stark nodded, "Go on."

"The East wing was where they kept me," his voice cracked on the last note and he inwardly cursed to himself. The last thing he needed now was to appear weak, emotional, "It's where they wiped my memories and stored me away."

"Stored you away?" This voice was Steve's, and it sounded pained. Bucky handy disclosed the entirety of his experiences as The Soldier with his friend, not willing to upset him.

"They, uh," he wasn't sure what to say but decided the truth would be the best option. He'd been hiding for too long, "They kept me under ice when they weren't, you know, using me."

Steve let out a long whistle of breath through his front teeth at the revelation, but Stark merely nodded and looked over at Bucky. It was strange, having a conversation with a man in a mask. The anonymity of it made Bucky feel a little uneasy, he recognised the irony.

"Are you expecting me to feel sorry for you?"

Bucky spun around at the unexpected venom in Bruce Banner's voice. The man had clenched his fist in front of him, literally shaking.

"I'm not expecting anything," Bucky tried to keep the venom out if his voice. He held no ill will for the man, regardless of how much he seemed to be disliked by him.

Banner snorted out a bitter laugh and raised an eyebrow under a pair of thick-rimmed glasses.

"How do we not you're not just leading us into a trap?"

"Bruce-" Steve interjected, his voice a warning.

"How do we know you didn't kidnap her yourself, huh?"

A flash of anger ran through Bucky, making him see red for a second. He pushed himself up off the chair and walked towards the scientist, his heart beating fast. The suggestion that he had done anything to hurt Erin was repulsive to him.

"How about you shut up before I make you?" Bucky's voice was ice. He clenched his metal fist purposely, and he saw Banner's eyes flick to it and then back to his face. He stood up slowly and, to Bucky's annoyance, was slightly taller than him so looked down.

"You didn't see her when she came back." Bruce's voice was even, controlled, but Bucky didn't fail to notice that his fist was shaking, clenched so tightly the knuckles were turning white. He felt a warm hand on his shoulder, pulling him back.

"Leave it, Buck. It's not worth a fight." Steve's voice was calm, but Bucky detected a slight hint of panic with it. What was he so afraid of?

"She spent two weeks in an induced coma, had a three-litre blood transfusion." Bruce continued. It took Bucky a few seconds to understand he was talking about Erin, and the knowledge hit him in the gut.

"When she woke up, she had a tremor in her right hand, it wouldn't go away no matter how much physio she had, so the doctors figured it was PTSD," Bruce continued, his expression blank. Bucky remembered the night when he had got Erin to ask him the questions about his past life under influence of the serum. Her hand had been shaking the entire time. He felt a shard of ice travel up his back.

"She was prescribed sleeping pills, you know?" Banner continued. Steve pursed his lips and shook his head minutely.

"Bruce. Stop."

"She had this recurring dream. More of a nightmare, really. She was chased down a hallway by a man with a metal arm."

This knocked the wind out of Bucky, and he actually took a step backwards in shock, like someone had punched him in the stomach.

Bruce Banner took a step fordwards until he was face to face with Bucky, breathing in the same air. His hand was still shaking, small droplets of blood falling to the floor where his fingernails had dug too deep into his soft palm.

"Bruce, take a deep breath and sit down." Steve's voice was authoritarian, not allowing any room for interpretation.

"Everything okay back there?" Tony Stark's metallic voice cut through the tension and brought Banner back to his senses. He took a step backwards, shaking his hand to remove the tremor, and sat down.

"Don't worry," he said, rubbing his forehead as if it was hurting him, "No code-green."

Code green?

'The big guy'. That was what Stark had called him, and yeah, Banner was a pretty tall guy, but certainly not tall enough to warrant a nickname like that. Bucky didn't claim to know an awful lot about the Avengers, but he had done enough research as a HYDRA agent to know the basics. The Hulk was a monster, a man who turned into a green giant when he was angry. Bucky glanced down at Banner, the mild - mannered physicist. He recalled the fear in Steve's eyes when he had got annoyed.

Surely that man couldn't be...

"Okay," Stark's voice broke the awkward silence that had rested on the heli-carrier since Bruce's outburst. "We're half an hour from Krakow."

Bucky let out a deep breath and sat down next to Banner, looking over at him.

"I know you don't believe me, but I'm just here because I'm trying to help Erin. I feel terrible that this has happened, I just want to make it better."

Bruce raised an eyebrow and turned to him, his eyes full of something that was more powerful than rage or anger. Disgust.

"I think you've done enough."

* * *

"What do you want?"

Erin's voice came out as more of a croak than speech. Her shoulder was still on fire, a burning ache that never seemed to go away, and though it had stopped bleeding, she could smell a putrid scent that screamed of infection. She was wearing a simple black vest and a pair of black pyjama shorts, and she didn't think that HYDRA had invested in an indoor heating system, as her scarred legs were covered in an array of goosebumps.

Pine was in the corner of the room, sat on a wicker chair that creaked precariously under his large frame. He looked up when Erin asked the question, and smiled conspiratorially.

"You know what we want, Erin," he sounded almost disappointed, "We want intel on The Soldier."

She rolled her eyes, ignoring the stab of pain that ran through her at the mention of Bucky. She wondered if he had even noticed she was missing, or if he had just kept walking after their argument. If she had really mattered so little to him.

"Yeah, well you know I'm not gonna give you that, so what else are you beating me up for?"

Pine regarded her coldly for a moment. He knew that she was right. She was disgustingly obstinate, blatantly refusing to disclose any information about The Soldier. Not that it mattered particularly, Bucky didn't have a chance on his own against Pine's battalion of agents. The Colonel was also hoping that he would be so distracted by his emotions it would make him easier to manipulate. That was his main reason for trying to hurt Erin, not that he would tell her that.

He smiled, the grin twisting the scar on the side of his face grotesquely.

"Fun?"

He flipped the long Swiss Army Knife out of his pocket, admiring the way it glistened in the light. A bolt of ice ran down Erin's back. Not again. She couldn't go through this again.

"Now," Pine took a step forwards and traced the tip of the knife down her cheek, the cold steel biting into her warm flesh, "Where do we start?" She felt a thick hot droplet fall down her neck, and looked up at Pine with an expression of defiance.

"Try your fucking worst."

 **REVIEW AS ALWAYS XX X x**


	33. Part Two: seventeen

Memories are a strange thing. You can go to a place and think you'll never ever forget it, no matter what happens, but when you finally return it seems like another planet. A place so different from how you remember it that you wonder if it's even the same place at all. This was how Bucky felt as he stepped out of Stark's helicarrier into the chilly morning Krakow air.

The cloaking technology that Tony had managed to encrypt into the carrier meant that the team had managed to land on the outskirts of the HYDRA campus undetected, and Bucky could easily make out the giant building through the thick fog with his enhanced eyesight. He had been here before, for a long time, but it seemed different somehow. This was the building where Pine had given him the instruction to kidnap Erin, the building where she had been locked up and tortured for five days. The building where he had stood by and watched.

He'd expected to feel something deep inside when he caught a glimpse of it again, but he was surprisingly devoid of emotion as his heavy strides took him closer and closer to the place where he had sworn he would never return. The only thing filling his mind was Erin. Was she still alive? Was she alright? What had they done to her? He couldn't help clench his fist slightly at the thought. There had been blood on the linoleum kitchen floor in Erin's flat, the splatter pattern had looked like a gunshot wound. That wasn't something he wanted to think about.

"Okay, so here's the plan." Tony's voice broke through Bucky's internal monologue. He felt a warm hand on his elbow and he stopped walking and turned around. Steve let go of his arm and turned to look at Tony.

"Capsicle and the big guy are gonna take security, in fact " He said, tapping Banner on the chest with the back of his armoured hand. Bucky knew better than to question that decision. He was sure now that Bruce Banner, the mild-mannered physi, in fact, The Hulk. In retrospect, he probably shouldn't have goaded him so much on the way here, trying to get him annoyed.

"That involves taking out anyone you see in your way," Steve and Bruce nodded, "Banner, try to be at least a little inconspicuous."

Bruce smiled, slightly embarrassed, and nodded.

"Winter?"

"Don't call me that," Bucky snapped, but Tony ignored him and carried on.

"You know this place, you know the layout. Your job is to find Erin and get her back here."

Bucky nodded, happy with that decision. He would be the first person Erin saw, hopefully, he would be able to reassure her, even a little.

"And you?" He asked Tony. The man smiled and flipped up the hood on his Iron Man suit, cloaking his face.

"I'm going to disable the alarms and security cameras." His voice was tinny, metallised by the mask, "This is a quick in and out operation, I don't need anyone getting distracted by anything." He looked pointedly at Bucky for this bit, and despite the mask over his face, Bucky knew the exact expression he would have on.

"What'cha lookin' at _me_ for?"

Tony tilted his head to the side.

"We're going in to get the girl, nothing else. I don't want you going off on a wild goose chase to find that Pine guy."

Bucky took a step back and brought his hand up.

"No, no, no. The terms of this were that I could kill him. After everything that he's done to me, to Erin. I want that man dead." Of course, saving Erin was the priority, the reason he had come here, but if he didn't get to see the light fade out of Pine's cold grey eyes he would go back to America feeling like he'd missed his chance. He was never going to get an opportunity like this again.

Bucky looked at Steve desperately, but the blonde just shook his head at Bucky, an apology in his eyes.

"Sorry, Buck, but I think he's right. You'll be distracted if you're going in there with the intent to save Erin _and_ kill Pine, and we can't risk that."

Bucky bit his lip, annoyed, but could understand where they were coming from. Erin was the priority here, Pine could wait.

"Alright," he accepted, cracking his knuckles, "Let's get down to business."

"To defeat the Huns," Tony whispered behind him as they turned to walk towards the shadowed building in front of them. The most unlikely set of friends, somehow working together.

Banner and Steve made their way to the left and ran towards the building, ready for their job. Tony turned to Bucky as they continued to walk.

"Power grid?"

"To the left side of the plant, right at the back. Security camera stations are in the north-east."

Stark nodded and flew off, the heat from the metal jet packs in his shoes blasting Bucky in the face with hot air as he went. Bucky rubbed his eyes as they returned to focusing on the darkness after the sudden and unexpected burst of light and broke into a flat out run. He knew where the hostage quarters were, he just hoped that he would reach there in time.

* * *

"I can't wait for Prince Charming to turn up," Pine muttered, twirling his knife around his right hand and looking down at Erin. She was in a bad way, her eyelids drooping over her dark eyes and a droplet of blood running down her cheek. She gave a non-committal grunt as a response to his statement and tried to lift her head to look at him. He could see a bruise forming on her left cheekbone.

The gunshot wound in her shoulder looked nasty, surrounded by the sticky signs of dried blood. She was wearing a grey tank-top, and the blood had leached into the fabric, turning it a dark brown. He also had a good view of the scars on the tops of her legs, an autograph from the last time she was here.

It had been ten hours since she had been taken, roughly five hours that she had been there. It couldn't be long until The Soldier turned up in his shining armour to save the fair maiden.

"He's not stupid enough to fall for your trap," the words were very quiet, but he heard them nonetheless. Erin coughed loudly, her head down, and Pine saw a single drop of blood-filled saliva fall from her mouth.

"He gets careless when he's unfocused, Erin. That's why you're here. To unfocus him."

"I think you overestimate how much I mean to him, mate."

He bent down and threaded his hand through the hair on the top of her head, lifting her head up so he could look her in the face. He studied her, the curve of her lips, the shape of her nose. Not an unattractive face, he noted, but he couldn't see what it was about her that had made the Soldier fall for her. She wasn't a classic beauty, but he couldn't deny there was something about her face that could only be described by the word 'intriguing'. He could admit she had a good body, despite the scarring, but that had never seemed important to the Soldier before his escape. Pine let her head fall and took a step back.

"I don't think I am."

About six years ago, he had been told by the cryotechnologists that Barnes had been restless, uncompliant. He had been advised that this may be due to certain 'urges' that hadn't been acted on in a while. He must have brought hundreds of women to the Base over the space of the next two years, each one more beautiful, more exotic than the last. The Soldier had refused to have anything to do with any of them. That was why Pine had been so surprised to learn of his apparent relationship with Erin from Dr Kennedy, he had begun to think that the Soldier batted for the other team.

He checked his watch, half past four in the morning, and sighed to himself. He needed a coffee. Taking one last look at the slumped figure of Erin Jefferson, hunched over herself in the chair, he turned and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

* * *

Bucky ran. He was running faster than he ever thought that he could, the mental image of Erin, slumped to the ground, dead, filling his mind every time he so much as blinked. The grey concrete walls of the HYDRA camp sped past him so quickly they had begun to blur, his heavy boots thudded on the stone ground, echoing loudly in the confined space. He was a spy, he should be moving slowly, quietly to avoid detection, but he was ignoring everything he had been taught. None of that mattered now. What mattered was that he reached Erin before it was too late.

He sped around a corner and came face to face with a HYDRA guard. Not just any HYDRA guard, however. The man in front of Bucky was none other than Private Sean Gardner, the mouthy blonde he had beaten the living daylights out of all those months ago. What was it he had said?

' _Lay one finger on that girl and I'll rip your spine out through your mouth.'_

"You?" There was fear in the blonde's eyes. He remembered the last time he had come into contact with Bucky.

Sean took a step forwards, reaching in his pocket for a gun. Before he could grab it, Bucky brought his leg up and kicked the Private in the chest, sending him stumbling backwards. He then took two steps forward and threaded his hand through Sean's hair, slamming his head into the wall next to them. There were a sickening crunch and Gardener went down like a stone, crumpling to the floor. Bucky took one last look at him and continued running, clearing the man from his mind. Erin was the focus here. He rounded another corner and sped past a security camera, hoping to himself that stark had managed to switch them off in time before anyone was alerted of his presence there.

By the time he reached the holding cells he was out of breath, which was a big deal for him. He had run faster than he should have, his thighs were burning with the exertion of it. There were at least ten cells, each one locked from the outside. Bucky already knew which one Erin would be in. Of course, Pine would want to freak her out by bringing her back to exactly the same cell she had started in, making her think her nightmare had started up again, this time for real. He walked over to the cell door and tried his fingerprint on the automated lock. Unsurprisingly, it didn't work, they must have cleared his prints off when he went rogue. There was only one thing for it.

He curled his metal hand into a fist and brought it crashing down to the lock. Metal hit metal with a deafening clang, and a powerful recoil hit Bucky's shoulder, sending him to his knees, teeth gritted.

"Fuck." He muttered through clenched teeth. He rolled his shoulder and looked up at the lock. It was dented, misshapen. He stood up with a grunt and slammed his shoulder against the door. It jolted slightly but remained firmly closed. He clenched his fist once more and brought it down again, flinching at the pain in his shoulder where flesh met metal. The lock was in a bad shape, bent and twisted, one more good punch should do it.

With a yell he slammed his fist into the side of the door one last time, putting all his anger, all his rage into one blow. There was a loud thud and the door swung inwards. Bucky practically fell forwards, exhausted. So much for keeping silent and not drawing attention to himself.

He had been right. There was a figure in the centre of the room, bent double, tied to a rickety wooden chair. If it wasn't for the grey shirt that she was wearing, instead of the gaudy pink one he had originally seen her in, he would have thought he was right back at the beginning. He took three cautious steps forwards and knelt down in front of her.

"Erin? Darling, it's me. It's Bucky."

His voice was hoarse. There was no response from her, she didn't even flinch at the sound of his voice, just remained still, head bowed. Her wild blonde hair was messy, matted with sweat. He gently lifted her face, and his heart plummeted. There was a thick bruise on her cheekbone and a droplet of blood running from her hairline down her cheek. He audibly hissed when he saw the bullet wound in her shoulder, covered in dark brown dried blood.

"You took your fucking time."

She was very quiet, the sound coming out more as a whisper than as speech, but it made Bucky's shoulders suddenly relax.

"Erin, thank fuck." The relief was audible in his voice. Her eyelids fluttered open and he cupped her face in his hands, holding it gently.

"Erin. I'm so sorry I left, I'm so sorry."  
His words came out as a jumbled mess. His fingers threaded through her hair, tilting her head up.

"I should never have gone, it was stupid of me. I just didn't know how to cope when I thought you-" his voice broke, "I thought you were just using me."

"Buck?" She asked. He nodded, listening intently, "As much as I'm loving this heart to heart, Pine knows you're here. He set this as a trap. We should probably, you know..." she gestured her head to the door and whistled.

Bucky nodded, a small smile on his face as he got to work quickly on the ropes used to tie her legs and arms to the chair. Even in a situation like this, she had a sense of humour, just one of the things he had begun to love about her. He gave up quickly and flipped a pen-knife out of his pocket, slicing the ropes with one swipe. He tried not to notice the way Erin flinched as he did. He knew what knives meant to her.

"You mind if I carry you?"

"How romantic." She held her hand to her heart and fake - swooned. Bucky rolled his eyes and took her in his arms. He winced slightly at the pained grunt she made as he jolted the bullet wound in her shoulder.

"This is going to hurt-" he warned and she scoffed, looking up at him.

"I can guarantee I've had worse."

He had to give her that, she was right. He got a tighter grasp of her and set off at a steady jog, not wanting to jostle her arm too badly. There was no need to cause her any more pain that necessary.

He couldn't help but think that this was _not_ the scenario he had expected the first time his hands had touched Erin's bare thighs. He had considered something slightly more romantic than carrying her half-conscious body through the concrete halls of a terrorist organisation's Base Camp.

He rounded a corner, and another, his feet thumping against the floor as he sped along. It was quiet in the corridors, the only sound being his heavy breathing, Erin's periodical grunts of pain, his footsteps.

The click of a gun barrel fitting into place.

He froze, Erin still in his arms, a shard of ice travelling down his back. Eighty years in the business had given him a sort of sixth sense, a tingling down the back of his spine when he was being watched. He spun around slowly and looked towards the end of the corridor. The first thing he registered was the barrel of the automatic pistol, pointed directly at his skull. His eyes ran from the gun to the hand holding it, to the face of the man stood in front of him. A single scar ran down the side of his face, twisting his features, turning what would originally have been a handsome face into a grotesque mockery.

"Winter."

"Pine."

The pair greeted each other civilly but the crackle of electricity between them was difficult to miss. Pine smiled, his face twisting with it.

"How nice of you to finally join us."

 **Drinking game. Every time I leave a chapter on a cliffhanger take a shot.**

 **Actually please don't because you will probably die.**

 **I WANT TO KNOW YOUR REACTIONS LET ME KNOW PLEASE also this is a super long chapter for me**


	34. Part Two: eighteen

**I've returned from the depths of Dublin to write another Chapter (Fina ALLY) I'm sorry it's taken me so long, though. Now, are you all sitting comfortably? Then let's begin.**

Bucky's arms tightened slightly around Erin, who was now beginning to groggily wake up. Her hazy brown eyes flickered from Bucky's shocked face to the twisted smile of Pine, who had not yet lowered his gun, the barrel pointing directly between Bucky's eyes. There was only one thing she was thinking.

"Fuck." the word was muttered out of her mouth before she could stop it.

Pine smiled at her response. "I've missed your vocabulary, Jefferson."

"This is between you and me, Stephen. Leave her out of it." The voice came from Bucky, his chest vibrating with it. His face was as hard as a rock, his blue eyes icy. Pine shook his head.

"Not exactly true, Soldier,"

Pine gestured with his head to behind Bucky's left shoulder. He stiffened and whipped his head around as he saw four men emerge from the shadows, in the classic black padded uniform of a HYDRA soldier. His eyes flickered from side to side, wondering which assailant to deal with first. In any other situation, he would have already taken out the four men behind him and would be moving on to Pine now, but in this hypothetical situation, he didn't have a hundred and thirty pounds of chemist in his arms.

"Let me down," Erin's order would have been a lot more convincing if she hadn't ended it with a coughing fit that sounded like she was trying to expel her lungs from her torso.

"I don't think that's such a good idea, Erin," Bucky responded, hyper-aware of the fact that the men on each side of him were slowly walking forwards, guns drawn. His mind was working on overdrive, thinking and rethinking, analysing all possible ways to get out of his situation, and he was coming up blank. He could fight all these men off in a heartbeat, but not with Erin in his arms. He looked up at Pine, who still had his gun pointed at Bucky, and was still smiling. He'd been waiting for this moment, and now it had finally come, he was going to enjoy it.

"I can stand, Bucky. Just put me down and you can take care of them." Erin's voice was getting desperate now, and Bucky had to admit he was considering her offer. He looked down at her, saw those deep brown eyes, those eyes that he couldn't seem to forget. She nodded up at him. The amount of trust on her face broke his heart. He didn't deserve that. She had a point, though. If he put her down, he could make fast work of the four HYDRA agents surrounding him without Erin in his arms, and that would only leave Pine. This could work.

He nodded his head imperceptibly, but she understood. Get ready. Bucky's thumb rubbed up and down once on her upper thigh, something that was hopefully a reassuring gesture, and proceeded to place her, feet first down on the floor. It was a little faster than she expected, and she wobbled slightly before grabbing onto the wall next to her for support. Bucky, on the other hand, had spun around faster than Erin could compute. He elbowed one of the HYDRA agents directly in the face, sending him to the floor like a lead pipe. A bullet was fired and Bucky ducked out of the way with superhuman speed, letting it crash into the drywall behind him, dangerously close to Erin's head. She let out a high-pitched scream in surprise.

"Get down," Bucky yelled at her, as his metal fist sunk into the stomach of another of the men, who bent double with the pain, giving him the perfect opportunity to knee him in the face. Erin didn't need to be told twice, she slid down the side of the wall and curled up into the fetal position on the floor, her shoulder, the one that had been shot earlier, burning in pain at the unexpected movement. She felt slightly useless, crouched down in a corner whilst Bucky sent a roundhouse kick into a HYDRA assailant's sternum, sending him flying. This was Bucky's thing, this was what he did. It was the first time she had ever really seen him fight, and she had to admit, it terrified her a little bit. He was like a machine. Not just because of the metal arm, shining and powerful, almost with a mind of it's own as it sailed into the ribs of one of the men who had been foolish enough to get back up off the floor and try again. It was the way that he moved, like a dancer, each step perfectly executed with maximum efficiency. She understood now why he was so dangerous, so feared. He took out the last man with a firm kick to the chest, sending him flying backwards and crashing into a wall behind him.

He stood, legs shoulder width apart, four unconscious men by his feet. He wasn't even out of breath, the rise and fall of his chest even and rhythmic. He looked down at her.

"You okay?" he asked down at her. She nodded her head, and he bent down to help her up, but froze in his place as he heard a throat clearing.

"You seriously didn't think I was going to let you go that easily, Winter?" Pine took a step forwards, his gun held high. Bucky had crouched into a defensive position, covering Erin's body with his own. The corner of Pine's mouth twisted upwards in a grim mockery of a smile, the thick scar on one side of his face mutating with the effort.

"You have me," Bucky said, his voice even. Erin didn't fail to notice the way that his hand crept towards one of the unconscious men on the floor, searching for the gun that he knew would be in his waistband. "You don't need her."

Pine rolled his eyes and stopped in his tracks, his eyes glinted.

"But I don't have you, Solider. Not really."

Bucky's eyebrow quirked in confusion at his statement. His hand grasped the gun he was searching for and he tucked it discreetly into his back pocket before standing up, still in front of Erin.

"You can take me back. Just let her go. She's not done anything to you."

Pine shook his head and lowered the gun for a second.

"Oh, but she has," he said, his eyes flicking from Erin to Bucky, focusing, Erin noticed, on the way that he was stood almost directly in front of her, protecting hr with his body, "She's taken away my most valuable asset. She's changed you, Soldier. In a way I'm not sure I'll be able to reverse."

Pine shrugged and pulled the gun back up, quicker than Erin could register. Bucky reached into his waistband and pulled out his own, but it was slightly too late. He felt a stinging pain in the left-hand side of his neck and he crumpled to the floor, dropping the gun. Bucky's hand raised to his neck, shaking, and he pulled out a small dart. A paralytic? The oldest trick in the book and he'd fallen for it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He felt useless, his limbs unmoveable.

"Bucky!" Erin screamed as Pine began to walk forwards, towards the pair of them, lying on the floor. She shook his shoulders, but his entire body was limp, the drug already in his system.

"Erin..." he muttered, his voice coming out slurred. Bucky felt his eyes begin to close, his body weighing as much as a house, a plane, a skyscraper, pulling him downwards. The last thing he saw before his vision went black was a scarred face smiling in triumph.

"Might as well try, though," Pine said.

* * *

Bucky woke up with a sore head and a dry throat. He let out a low cough, clearing his throat. The lights above him hurt his eyes, and he blinked twice, hard, trying to focus. There was a deep-seated sense of unease in his gut, nerves firing rapidly as he took in his surroundings. He was sat down, his head facing upwards towards the ceiling. The entire situation felt far too familiar for his liking. He tried to stand up but was stopped by something.

"Ah, you're awake."

The voice came from his left, and he turned his head around to see Stephen Pine, standing with his hands behind his back, looking down at him with medical curiosity. Bucky's heart skipped a beat as he began to recognise the room he was sat in the middle of. More specifically, the chair that he was now strapped to. His breathing quickened. Not now. Not again. Not after he had worked so so hard to finally discover who he was, finally begin living once more. He couldn't lose that. Couldn't lose-

Erin. The first thing he noticed was just how bad her shoulder looked in the light. The blood had soaked into her white tank-top, turning almost half of it a rusty brown colour. The second thing he noticed was the HYDRA agent stood behind her, holding her arms behind her back. Erin was small, even by ordinary standards. There was no way that she could escape the grasp of that man, no matter how much she was wriggling, trying to get out. The two made eye contact, and Bucky tried to smile, a half-arsed attempt at reassuring her. He didn't know how he was going to pretend that everything was fine when it so obviously wasn't.

He looked down. There was blood on his fitted grey T-shirt, probably remnants of when he had been carrying Erin. That wasn't what he was worried about, though. He was worried about the thick leather straps that would around his arms, his torso, his legs. He strained against them, trying to stand up, but all in vain. He couldn't move.

"You see..." Pine began, walking very nonchalantly over to Erin and placing a single hand on her shoulder. Her hurt shoulder. She winced slightly, and Bucky flinched.

"Get your hands off her," the order came out as pure venom, but Pine gave him no heed.

"You'll never be the Soldier again, James."

It was surreal to hear someone call him by his actual name. He couldn't remember the last time he hadn't been referred to as either Bucky or Soldier. It jolted him, surprised him enough to shut him up for a second.

"Not whilst _she's_ still here." Pine clapped Erin on the shoulder and she let out a hiss of pain. Bucky noticed a tear fall from her eye. He tried to lift his arms, grunting at the effort. The leather creaked with the tension but didn't snap.

"Then let her go,"

Pine laughed. Actually laughed. "It surprises me that you're such a martyr now, James. You used to be the kind of man to throw a fellow soldier in the path of a bullet just to get your job done. Where has all this sentimentality come from?"

"I'll kill you," Bucky's voice was as hard as iron. Pine smirked at him and walked closer towards him. He reached above Bucky's head and pulled down something that Bucky never thought he would see again. The thick black wire connected to the electrical headset reflected the too-bright lights of the room. Pine brought it down to rest either side of Bucky's head.

"No. No. No. No." Bucky was muttering now, a mantra filling his mind. Erin, who understood immediately what Pine was doing, began to shout.

"Get away from him. Stop!" The HYDRA agent behind her pulled her arms closer together behind her back, opening up the wound in her shoulder that had almost healed. She let out a scream and Bucky clenched his fist together so hard that his nails dug into his palm, breaking skin. He felt hot wet blood in his hand. All the work that she had put in, all the jokes that they had shared, the secret looks and stolen kisses. All of it would be gone. Pine switched on the machine beside Bucky's chair and it whirred into life.

Bucky felt sick, his heart was beating so fast it felt like it was going to come out of his chest. There was a strange noise in his ears, a high pitched whine that cut right through him. It took him a while to realise that he was screaming.

"Not so brave now?" Pine's face was directly above his, grey eyes on blue.

Pine smiled at Bucky. He was close enough for the shorter man to smell the coffee on his breath, see up close that grisly scar than ran down his face.

"You're not going to kill me when this is all over, James."

He flicked the switch on the side of the machine, and Bucky's word exploded in pain. His mind was on fire, all of the memories of the last six months, the best six moths of his life, flashing past him at lightning speed. Every muscle in his body was burning up, hot and cold and hot and cold all at once. He shouted, babble coming out of his mouth, a string of words that made no sense to him. He heard Erin's name in there more than once.

Then a voice in his ear, a single voice, a low voice, a voice he knew.

"You're going to kill _her_."


	35. Part Two: nineteen

"They should have been back by now."

Steve was pacing the heli-carrier nervously, wringing his hands together in front of him. He and Bruce had got back to the carrier over half an hour ago, and they were still waiting on Bucky. Tony looked back from his seat at the front. He still wore the red Iron Man suit, but his mask had slid back, giving Steve a perfect view of his calm face. He wasn't worried at all.

"The guy is a professional, Rogers, he's fine."

Steve let out a disgruntled sigh and sat back down, his knee spasming up and down. "No. He knows this place, he should have been back by now. Something is wrong."

"We'll give him five minutes. If he's not out by then you can go and check what's happening."

Steve sighed, unhappy with the answer, "You said that five minutes ago, Stark. I know Bucky. He's not the type of guy to be late, especially not for something as important as this."

Bruce, who had been quiet for the whole conversation, piped up. He was dressed in only a knee-length pair of shorts, a thick grey blanket wrapped around his shoulders. His shirt had long-gone, ripped away as he had transformed.

"What if he's not the guy you knew anymore?"

Steve let out a noise that sounded like it was trying very hard not to be annoyed. "What do you mean?"

Bruce shrugged and stuck Steve with a disbelieving look.

"He's been under HYDRA control for over half a century, Steve. He's not going to be the Bucky that you knew in Brooklyn. Are you sure we can trust him?"

Steve scratched the back of his neck and sat down next to Bruce, wringing his hands together in front of him nervously. He turned his head to the side and looked at the black-haired man with no trace of uncertainty in his eyes.

"I would trust James Buchannan Barnes with my life, HYDRA or no HYDRA."

* * *

Bucky's torso jerked upwards and then slammed back into the chair he was strapped to with such ferocity it wouldn't surprise Erin if he had broken a bone. She struggled against the arms of the man behind her, but with a gunshot wound to one shoulder and about 3 pints of blood missing, she was in no position to escape.

"Bucky!" She screamed, her throat aching as the wind passed roughly through it. Her voice was hoarse. Pine looked back at her, then moved his gaze to Bucky, who was still convulsing, a noise coming from his mouth that was barely human.

"He's not going to be Bucky when he wakes up from this, Erin," Pine told her. He had to raise his voice slightly to be heard over the whirring of the machine that was sucking the memories right from Bucky's head, and his screaming, which had lowered now to the occasional small grunt of pain.

Erin shook her head, refusing to believe him. She had put so much into helping Bucky get his memories back. So much time and effort and love. In a matter of a few seconds, that was all taken away from her? It seemed unfair, a cosmic joke.

"Oh, you can shake your head as much as you want, Jefferson. That isn't going to stop him from coming for you."

Pine must have noticed the confused look on Erin's face. Of course, she hadn't heard his threat the first time, his low voice must have been overpowered by the whirring of the machine as it sprung to life.

 _'You're going to kill her.'_

"It seems quite fitting," Pine said, walking over to Erin. He gestured to the agent behind her, and she suddenly felt her arms come loose, hanging uselessly by her sides. He was letting her go?

"You're the one who took him out of HYDRA. It's quite poetic how you'll be the one to put him back in."

She gave Pine a wary look, confused.

"What do you mean?"

He smiled. That smug smile that she had grown so used to over the last few hours.

"When he gets up, he'll be the Winter Soldier. The same man who drugged you and carried your lifeless body out of that goddamn flat. The man who has killed more people than you can imagine. He'll be a man with no remorse, no guilt. And you'll be his first target."

The blood rushed from Erin's face at his words. Surely he couldn't mean-

"He's going to kill me." She didn't phrase it as a question. She already knew the answer. She had stolen Bucky from Pine. She had changed him so much he was a completely different person. There was only one way to reverse that.

"Get me out of the picture, so he can go back to how he was."

Pine nodded at her, a sly smile creeping up the side of his face. Erin was beginning to shake, going into shock. She could never hope of fighting off the Winter Soldier when she was at her full strength. But now, as weak as she was? He would kill her before she had a chance to say a word.

Her wide eyes flicked between Pine and Bucky, who was now completely still on the chair, his naked torso covered in a thin sheen of sweat, the metal arm glistening almost angrily under the harsh lights of the compound room.

"Longing."

Erin raised an eyebrow at Pine, the word appearing to have come out of nowhere. _Longing?_

"What the fuck are you talking about?" She asked him. He merely looked at her pointedly, before turning his attention back to Bucky. Not Bucky, Erin reminded herself. Not anymore.

"Rusted."

At the second word, Erin noticed the third finger on the metal arm move slightly as if awakening from a deep sleep. What was happening?

"Furnace."

A hoarse sound came from Bucky's throat, almost like a whine. The noise cut right through Erin. He sounded like he was in pain.

"Stop it," Her voice was surprisingly steady, "You're hurting him". Pine looked back at her in surprise. He looked almost smug. He looked directly at Erin as he said the next word.

"Seventeen."

The metal arm jerked violently, tugging on the thick metal strap. Erin jumped.

She glanced from Pine to Bucky to the open door behind her, calculating. She didn't know how many words Pine had left until Bucky fully awoke, didn't know how much time she had left before he started coming for her. Would she have enough time to run?

"Benign," Bucky jerked upwards and slammed back onto the seat. Erin made a decision. She gave Bucky and Pine one last look and flipped on her heel, sprinting out of the door behind her. Nobody made an effort to stop her, neither Pine nor the agent by the door attempted to prevent her from fleeing. They just let her do it. She tried not to think about the fact that that probably meant they assumed she would die anyway.

She put the thought from her mind and ran, her arm jerking painfully beside her as she ran, her bare feet slapping loudly on the linoleum floor. She left a trail of blood behind her as she ran, the wound in her shoulder opening up. It wasn't exactly inconspicuous, and Erin didn't doubt that Bucky would be able to tell the way that she had gone. It didn't take a genius to follow the blood droplets to find the bleeding woman. She'd basically left him a Hansel and Gretel breadcrumb line directly to her.

She tore a thick strip of fabric from the bottom of her grey tank top and tied it tightly around her shoulder, gritting her teeth at the pain, then carried on running.

* * *

"Nine

Homecoming

One

Freightcar."

The Soldier opened his eyes groggily, blinking as he got used to the harsh lighting of the room. He looked around himself, confused for a second before he saw the figure of a tall man standing above him. There was a thick pale scar that ran down one side of what would otherwise be a handsome face.

"Ready to comply," his voice was even. The man above him smiled and undid the thick leather straps holding his arms down.

"My name is Colonel Stephen Pine, you will answer to me."

The Soldier nodded once and sat up, rubbing his wrists. His metal arm was fine, shining under the bright lights, but his other one had a thick band of red around the forearm, skin that had been rubbed almost raw. His eyebrow quivered slightly in confusion. He had fought against the restraints with such force that he'd made himself bleed?

There was a rustle of paper and his gaze darted upwards to Pine once more. The man was flicking through a file of thick, heavy paper. The Soldier's gaze darted from Pine to another man in the room, a soldier dressed entirely in black. There was a splattering of blood on his jawbone... not _his_ blood. Another eyebrow quiver, another unanswered question. A piece of paper appeared in his peripheral vision and the Soldier took it without speaking, reading through it.

"Erin Jefferson," Pine said the name with a contempt that he tried to hide, but didn't quite manage, "She's a SHIELD agent."

The Soldier nodded, looking through Erin's profile with a practised eye. Born in Manchester, England, studied Biochemistry at Cambridge and scouted by SHIELD after teaching Chemistry to underprivileged High School Students. He nodded his head slightly to the side. Smart girl. There was something niggling at the back of his mind. Something about the name, the story. It was almost like he had heard it before.

"Is she a threat?" The question was out of the Soldier's mouth before he could stop it. He was curious about this girl.

Pine gave him a stern look that told him everything he thought about curiosity. There was no room for it at HYDRA.

"Yes. She is."

The Soldier nodded and turned the page, looking at the second sheet. There was a small colour photo attached to the corner of the sheet, along with a detailed explanation of her works at SHIELD. They held no interest to him, though. He was fixated on the picture of her face. That niggle was back in his mind again. She was looking straight into the camera, her eyes dark and intense, looking straight through the paper, straight at him. The curve of her top lip, the smooth indent of her cheekbones, the way her blonde hair just tickled her shoulders but was so curly that some of it was obscured by the borders of the photo. It seemed almost like deja vu.

The Soldier looked from the paper to Pine, and then to the paper again.

"Do I know her?"

Pine seemed taken aback by the question. His answer was quick, too quick.

"No,"

"It's just something about her eyes... I think I recognise them-"

"You've never met her before. I want her dead."

He nodded silently. A decision had been made, he had to follow it, regardless of the deep brown eyes that seemed to be staring at him through the paper. He placed the sheets down on the chair and stood up, rolling his shoulders, warming himself up.

"Do you have a lead on where she is?"

Pine gestured to the door behind him, and it was then that the Soldier noticed the stains of blood on the floor, deep red. "She left through there about three minutes ago."

His eyebrows raised and he looked closer at the floor, at the blood splatter patterns. There was a definite spread surrounding the droplets, she must be bleeding from somewhere high up. A head or chest wound. That wouldn't necessarily slow down her run. He reached into his belt, and was surprised when he felt nothing there. No knife, no gun, no weapon. He looked up at Pine, confused.

"Where's my-"

"Do it with your hands," Pine said. There was a small smile hinting at the corner of his mouth that didn't quite make it the whole way to his face.

"Sir?"

"You heard me," The smile had gone and Pine's face was as hard as a rock, the scar unmoving. The Soldier nodded. Orders were orders.

He took a step out of the door and nearly laughed. There was a thick trail of red droplets leading through the middle of the corridor. It was like the girl had left him a lit up runway to her whereabouts. He set off at a quick jog, following the blood, and stopped after a hundred metres where the trail went cold. She must have realised what had happened, bound her wound. The Soldier was left to look for other, less obvious clues. There was a single blonde curly strand of hair about fifty yards up the corridor, and after that The Soldier relied on the small residual footprints she had left on the floor. He sped up, knowing that she had a head start on him. With a wound that was bleeding that profusely, she couldn't be that far ahead of him, however.

He turned another corner, and stopped dead. Erin Jefferson had met a dead end, thirty feet ahead of him. She had her back to the wall behind her and was staring at him with wild eyes. He smiled. That was easy.

He took a few slow steps forwards, there was no need to rush, she was trapped.

"Bucky..." the word made him stop in his place, confused. That wasn't a word he knew. She took his hesitation as encouragement and limped forwards, coming into the light slightly. It was then that he noticed how injured she was. She was dressed in a very short pair of black briefs, exposing an array of silvery scars on her upper thighs, and a grey tank top, the bottom of which had been ripped off to bind a bleeding shoulder would. That explained the blood, then.

"Bucky..." She said again, and took another step fowards. Her movement shook The Soldier out of his momentary daze, and he walked towards her again, his arms flexing. Do the job, get out of there. Erin's face brightened slightly as he walked, then she saw the expression on his face and she blanched.

"Shit," she muttered, stepping backwards until her back was against the wall. The Soldier reached her in a few short steps until he was looking down at her. There was at least a foot difference in their height, and they were pressed so tightly together that they were chest to chest. They stayed like that for a second, staring into each other's eyes, light blue on dark brown, before long metal fingers clenched around Erin's neck, lifting her off the ground. She made a small gargling noise in the back of her throat and kicked out with her legs in an attempt to get him to let go. Her hand raised up in an attempt to push his face, and her fingernails got dangerously close to his eyes. He took both her wrists in his other hand and grabbed them tightly, not allowing for any movement.

"Bucky," That word again. Her eyelids were beginning to flutter shut, covering up those deep brown eyes. Eyes that The Soldier swore he could remember.

 _'You're just too good to be true,'_

He swore that he had misheard what she had said, her voice croaky, coming out in a breathy whisper. There was almost a tune to it, like she'd tried to sing but found that her lungs didn't quite work the way she had hoped they would.

 _'I can't take my eyes off you,'_

And again, another unexpected phrase, this one slightly stronger than the last. The words were familiar somehow, almost like a distant memory, or a dream, that you forget as soon as you wake up.

 _'You'd be like heaven to touch,_

 _I wanna hold you so much,'_

The Soldier's hand loosened around her throat slightly. There was something about her, something about the sound of her voice, speaking words he didn't understand, but still somehow knew. A vivid image flashed through his mind, bright colourful lights under a thick tent, a jazz band playing in the background. The scent of candyfloss and burnt out cigarette butts.

 _'At long last love has arrived, and I thank God you've arrived.'_

Erin sang these words stronger still, given confidence by the new room around her throat. The Soldier's mouth formed the next words without his knowledge.

 _'You're just too good to be true, can't take my eyes off you.'_

The feel of a beautiful girl in his arms, firm and soft at the same time, her eyes, deep brown, looking up into his. A blue dress. His fingers let go of her throat because of course, of _course._ This was Erin. Erin with the scars on her legs and the light in those dark eyes. Erin with the mouth that was lightning fast and the reactions that were that tiny bit too slow. Erin with the hair that tickled his face every time he took her in an embrace. Erin with the heart that was so large it had room for a whole other person. Erin, Erin, Erin,-

 _"Erin,"_

The word was out of his mouth like a shot, and suddenly his mouth was on hers, ferociously. The hand that he held onto her wrists with let go, and moved instead to cradle her head as he kissed her. He broke off and his lips moved to her cheek, her neck, grazed over the shoulder wound.

"Erin, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

She took a deep breath in and raised a limp hand to cup his jaw, her thumb rubbing over the overgrown stubble covering it. He was basically holding her up at this point, her limp body pliant in his arms. She smiled.

"I hate to break up this scene, but I'm pretty sure you had a job to do, Soldier." Pine's voice broke through the silence like a knife, and Bucky felt Erin stiffen in his arms. He spun around, standing protectively in front of Erin. Pine had a gun. A real one this time, he was sure of it. A bullet fired from that would send someone to sleep forever, not just for a few hours.

Pine was out of breath, he had ran to them, holding the gun out in front of him. It was pointed directly at Bucky's exposed chest.

"How the fuck did you do that again?" The question was directed at Erin, and she didn't need to ask for clarification about what he meant. How had she managed once again to make The Winter Soldier remember her, remember his life?

"This ends here," Bucky said, his voice surprisingly even. He had had guns pointed at him before, sure, but never when he was trapped at a dead end with no hope of escape, and certainly never when he was attempting to protect someone else. Funnily enough, before Erin protecting others had never been very high on his list. The Colonel took a step forwards, gun raised, and Bucky sprung into action. With a yell, he leapt forwards and kicked the gun out of Pine's hand, sending it spiralling along the floor. Pine was momentarily surprised, but soon recovered and sent a firm right hook straight into Bucky's face. He dodged out of the way of it, but not quite fast enough, and it clipped his jaw, sending him reeling a few steps backwards. He returned with a strong punch to the stomach. A punch that would have sent another man flying onto his back. All it made Pine do was take a small step back, and return with an uppercut to Bucky's jaw. The shorter man managed to dodge it and come back with a kick to Pine's stomach. The Colonel unbalanced and fell on his back, and Bucky was on him like a flash, straddling him, sending punches to his face with both fists, letting out every last bit of pent up rage, every single scar on Erin's leg that hadn't quite healed came out in another thump to Pine's nose, chest, head.

Pine was stronger than he looked, however, and somehow managed to flip himself over so he was over Bucky, raining down the same string of punches. His face was a mess, blood flowing freely, his scar hidden underneath a mass of bruised flesh. He gave as good as he got, however, knocking Bucky's face left and right.

There was a loud bang, and both men stopped still mid-fight, shocked by the noise. Erin knelt down, five feet away, an outstretched gun in her hand, the barrel still smoking.

Pine looked at her, then looked down at Bucky, then looked at his own white shirt. A thick pool of blood was rapidly spreading outwards from his chest. He looked back at Erin, his face confused.

"You?"

She glared at him, her face hard. His eyebrows moved together and he coughed, a thick line of blood running down his lips.

"What, nothing smart to say"

Erin smiled a tired smile that didn't reach her eyes and let the gun drop from her hand. She looked Pine in the eyes, grey on brown.

"Fuck you," Nothing more, nothing less. Two simple words that put all the hatred, all the anger she had ever felt. Every scar, every nightmare.

He collapsed, his body falling heavily onto Bucky's. The shorter man managed to slide out from under the Colonel's limp torso and reach Erin just before she collapsed. Bucky put his hand behind her head just before it hit the ground. He looked from her limp body over to the body of Pine. Face down on the floor, the pool of blood spreading outwards from his body. He looked like his son had in his last moments, lying broken on the ground, the rest of the world flying by without him. Bucky sat down next to Erin and closed his eyes, exhausted.

It was finally over.


	36. Part Two: twenty

**Firstly, news.**

I recently received an unconditional offer from University to study a Bsc in Chemistry, which I've accepted, so IM GOING TO UNI BABY YEAH IM GONNA GET A CHEM DEGREE im one step closer to being a mad scientist

 **Secondly, I hope you all liked the last Chapter. This one is coming out way sooner than I thought it would but I have 2 weeks off work so my motivation is at a high**

 **ALSO if anyone reading this also read much ado about vulcan there is an easter egg near the end of the chapter for you :)**

* * *

FOUR DAYS LATER

Erin was warm. Slightly too warm, but not enough to make her uncomfortable. Through her closed eyelids she could see the red-orange glow of what she knew to be sunlight hitting her face. As she surfaced towards consciousness, she began to hear a steady beeping sound near her, quiet and high pitched. There was also a pressure on her left hand. It was that more than anything that made her open her eyes.

She blinked twice, hard. The light streaming in was too bright and it burnt her sensitive retinas. Before she had a chance to even make a noise, the pressure on her hand increased to such a level that it was almost painful. She looked down, confused, and saw Bucky sat beside the clean, crisp bed she was led on, holding onto her hand with such a grip that his knuckles were beginning to turn white.

"Erin? Can you hear me?"

She wrinkled her eyebrows and blinked again, trying to get used to her surroundings. It was clean, too clean. Almost clinical.

"Where am I?" Her voice was a lot croakier than she had anticipated, and her hand unclasped from Bucky's and raised to her throat in surprise. She felt a small tug from her forearm and looked at it in confusion. There was a cannula attached to a vein in her arm, from which a long plastic tube was connected to a bag of what looked like water, hanging from a hook next to her bed.

"What the f-"

"You're in hospital, Erin. You've been out for four days."

 _Four days?_ It had really been four days since Bucky had rescued her from HYDRA, since he'd tried to kill her? Since-

Since she had shot a man in cold blood.

Erin tried to sit up, ignoring the pain in her shoulder and the uncomfortable feeling of the IV saline drip in her arm. She felt odd, unbalanced somehow. Bucky got up immediately and moved with her, helping her get into a comfortable position.

"Pine?"

"Dead." Bucky responded. She didn't miss the note of satisfaction in his deep voice. After all this time, everything that she had been through, it was over. Pine was dead. She expected Bucky to look happy, relieved. He didn't.

"What's wrong?"

He broke off eye contact with her for the first time since she had woken up, his bright blue eyes moving from her face to his fingernails.

"Bucky," Her voice had turned serious now, "What's happened. Is everyone alright? Are _you_ alright?"

He let out a humourless laugh and looked back at her.

"You always worry about everyone else, Erin. That's your problem. You always consider other people before you consider yourself." His voice was low.

"You're scaring me. What's wrong?" Erin's feeling of warmth and contentment had left her, covering her instead in a cold sweat. He brought his eyes back up to hers and this time they were filled with an expression she hadn't seen for a while. It was the same expression that had been on his face the night that he had remembered. The night that she had brought back the memories of what had happened to her in Poland the first time.

It was a look of guilt.

"They tell me the bullet to your shoulder hit the brachial plexus." His voice was monotonous. He noticed her look of confusion and carried on without interruption, "It controls the function of the muscles in your arm, it's basically a bundle of nerves."

Erin's heart dropped, that feeling of uneasiness had returned. Her eyes were trained on Bucky.

"And?"

"We spoke to the doctors and they told us-."

Bucky cut off and sighed, he rubbed his brow with his metal hand, pushing the soft strands of dark hair out of his face. Erin was still, unmoving. A feeling of numbness had crept up her body.

"They told us you'd lost the use of your right arm completely, that it would be best to amputate."

Erin blinked once. Twice. Three times.

"Say something. Please."

She squeezed her fingers on her left hand, the hand that Bucky was holding. She felt him squeeze back. Then she squeezed her fingers on her right hand.

Squeezed them again.

Nothing.

She broke off her eye contact with Bucky and looked instead at the thick wad of bandages wrapped clinically around her right shoulder. Her arm had gone. It was almost like she was in a dream. That was why she felt unbalanced, why she felt slightly sick when she awoke.

"Brachial plexus?" She pronounced the words, sounding them out loud. Bucky nodded and pushed back a strand of hair from her face. He got up off his chair and leant forwards to kiss her forehead, his lips on her skin for a fraction of a second, but enough to reassure her, make her feel a little better.

"It's right at the top of your shoulder, near your neck."

She nodded again, her body still in shock. It was taking her a while to comprehend what had happened. She had been shot in the shoulder and it had damaged a bundle of nerves, a bundle of nerves so important that she could not use her arm without them.

"How do you feel?"

She let out a humourless laugh. How did she feel? She'd woken up missing a limb after having killed a man. Her first kill. Hopefully her last. She didn't know how to put into words everything that was flying around her mind, all the fears and emotions. Eventually she settled on:

"Tired,"

He nodded, "They've pumped you full of so many painkillers I'm surprised you're awake at all. I've been speaking to Tony."

She looked at him in confusion. Tony?

"Why?"

"He said he could make you a prosthetic. A good prosthetic."

"You mean like one of those bad boys?" She gestured to his metal arm, and he let out a snort of laughter.

"Not quite," She could tell that he was slightly reassured by her attempt at a joke, even if it was half-arsed. "Maybe you can get a picture of a red moon on the shoulder, we can match," He looked down at the gaudy red star that had been painted onto the side of his metal arm. She rolled her eyes at his comment, but couldn't help the way the left corner of her mouth tilted up into something resembling a smile. As soon as Bucky saw it he moved forward from his seat and pressed his lips against the side of her mouth. He looked at her, face inches from hers, with something akin to wonder.

"You're so strong, Erin. Stronger than anyone. I don't deserve you."

She smiled again, looked him in the eyes. Blue on brown. She lifted up her arm and placed it on the side of his face, stroking his cheekbone with her thumb. His stubble had grown out, making his sharp jawline even rougher than usual. It looked like he hadn't shaved in five days. When she thought about it, he probably hadn't.

"You need to stop saying that," she muttered, almost to herself, "You are deserving of so much more than you believe."

She threaded her hand through his hair and brought his face down to hers for a kiss, this time, on the lips. He put his hands on each side of her face, just touching her neck, cold on one side warm on the other. He tilted her head slightly to get a better access to her mouth, noses bumping. Erin moved her hand from his hair down the back of his clean white shirt. The pair were interrupted by a loud beeping noise, and Bucky pulled away, his lips red and wet, startled.

Erin was just as confused as him until a young female doctor ran into the room, her black hair tied high above her head in a ponytail.

"Is everything okay, the monitor started beeping. Her heart rate is rising rapidly-" Her accent was, to Erin's surprise, Southern English. She stopped half way through her sentence as she took in the position of Bucky and Erin, their faces a few inches from each other. Bucky gave an embarrassed chuckle and sat back down, hands raised.

"Sorry. Won't happen again."

The doctor smiled at him and walked around the bed, perching casually on the side of it. She looked at Erin with concern.

"I'm Dr. Birchwood, I've been overseeing your progression," she hopped off the bed and picked up a chart from the foot of it, turning it over in her hands and having a look, "Your vitals are looking good, we've got you on saline and morphine," She gestured to the drip in her forearm, "All in all you're pretty stable."

"Apart from the missing arm," Erin interjected. She felt Bucky stiffen beside her and put her hand over his in something that was an attempt at comfort.

"Apart from the missing arm," Dr. Birchwood agreed. She put the folder back down and looked straight at Erin, "You were hit in the subclavian artery. It busted open your brachial plexus, basically fried all the nerve endings in your arm. You're pretty lucky not to have died from blood-loss. This one," She gestured to Bucky with her head, "Carried you in here four days ago and hasn't moved from your bedside once."

Erin looked at Bucky in surprise but he averted her gaze, embarrassed.

"We'll keep you for another twenty-four hours just to monitor all your functions, but I see no reason why you can't go home tomorrow. Your body responded incredibly well to the surgery and treatment."

Erin nodded and shuffled her position in the bed slightly. "Thank you,"

The doctor nodded and spun on her heel, walking out of the room. She turned at the door, and gave Erin a dazzling smile, showing a thick set of straight teeth slightly too big for her mouth.

"I'd keep a hold of him if I were you," She gestured to Bucky.

Erin squeezed his hand tighter, the simple contact between them enough to calm her nerves slightly.

"I have every intention of it."

* * *

REVIEW ANd SUCHLIke yes I chopped Erin's arm off I'm horrible and also very sorry. Sometimes the characters dont do what i plan them doing.

Slightly shorter chapter as it came out so soon after the last one which was a super long-un


	37. Part Two: twenty one

There were many words that Bucky Barnes could use to describe Tony Stark.

Arrogant was definitely one of them; the way that the billionaire had treated Bucky and Steve when they had come asking him for help finding Erin had been enough to convince them that he thought the world of himself. Excessive would also be a word Bucky would associate with the man, whose entire house had his own name emblazoned on the front of it. Childish, Foolish, Irritating... a Dickhead. All these words and more sprung to the former assassin's mind when he thought of the man behind the iron mask.

However, as he watched Erin look in awe as she stretched out the slender matte black synthetic arm Tony had fashioned for her, only one word came to his lips.

"Genius."

Tony looked over at him, an eyebrow raised. He hadn't been expecting compliments, obviously. He nodded his head once at Bucky and the longer-haired man felt a sudden surge of gratitude. Stark had made this contraption with his own time, his own knowledge, his own materials. He had given Erin back something that she thought she had lost forever, the use of her arm, but he had also given her something slightly less obvious. Bucky could see the confident glint come back to Erin's brown eyes as she tested the arm out, stretching and contracting it. He had given her back her hope. And he wasn't asking for anything in return. It was uncharacteristically philanthropic, even for someone who self-professed themselves as a philanthropist.

"Grab the glass on the table," Stark ordered Erin, placing his whisky tumbler down on the mahogany wood between them and looking at her intently. Erin nodded, a look of complete concentration on her face as she stretched out her bionic hand, the black fingers encircling the glass. She smiled to herself and grasped it tightly, lifting it up off the table. There was a high pitched cracking sound, and the glass shattered into pieces, spilling what was left of Stark's precious whisky. Bucky couldn't help but jump slightly at the sound. Even here, in the security of Stark's mansion, he was still on edge.

"Whoops," Erin muttered, embarrassed, "I guess I didn't know how strong this thing was,"

"That's my fault," Tony replied, trying to keep a straight face as he brushed shards of glass out of his bespoke Italian suit, "Should have had a better look at the compression levers. You need to remember that this hand isn't technically a part of you. It's not limited by the things that you're limited by."

Erin raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"You're strong," Tony said to her, "But only as strong as a human. Your arm is stronger than that. If you can lift a hundred pounds, that arm can lift five hundred."

Bucky sat back in his seat, watching the conversation intently. He remembered the first time he had properly tried to use his metal arm. He had gone to punch someone in the face, aiming to break his nose, and his fist had flown right through the man's skull, crushing it to pieces and coming out the back of his head like a bullet from a gun, killing him instantly. He winced slightly at the unpleasant memory. More and more things were coming back to him, pieces of information and knowledge that he thought he had lost forever. He was remembering more every day, building himself back brick by brick into the man he used to be. Not just memories from HYDRA, either; it wasn't unusual for him to wake up with a new recollection of his time as a boy in Brooklyn. For example, he had learnt the other day that he enjoyed fixing up broken motorbikes and making them run again. A hobby that he had forgotten for almost a century had come back to him in vivid technicolour.

Erin was wearing a black tank top, and Bucky could see the thin line of red on her shoulder where skin met synthetic. He had to admit, it was a much cleaner job than had been done on him. Bruce Banner, the doctor, had agreed to do the surgery on Erin under one condition; Bucky forgave his actions on the helicarrier.

"I was angry, it was stupid of me," He had said during their last conversation, looking Bucky in the eyes. Banner was slightly smaller, which Bucky found ironic given the fact that he could turn into a 10' tall green monster at any second.

"You were right to be pissed at me-" Bucky had begun, but Banner shook him off before he could even finish his sentence.

"When we found you both in that corridor, nearly dead, next to the body of that horrible man-" Bruce shook his head at the memory. Himself and Steve had returned to the base in an attempt to find Erin and Bucky but had arrived only in time to see the aftermath of all that had happened. He shrugged. "I could tell you loved her." He said simply, "Even unconscious, you were holding her like your life depended on it."

Bucky had smiled a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, struck by the Doctor's words.

"I think to some extent it did."

Erin turned around in her seat to look at Bucky, her face lit up with a smile that almost broke his heart. She lifted up the arm enthusiastically, nearly taking out Tony as it whizzed past his face, faster than a human arm ever could.

"I guess we match, now," She said, and Bucky couldn't help a self-deprecating chuckle to escape from his mouth.

"Yeah, you guys should start a band," Tony replied, rolling his eyes and grabbing Erin's arm again, fiddling at the shoulder joint with a tiny screwdriver.

"Or a two-person Paralympic synchronised swimming team," Erin suggested, and at this, a laugh really did bubble out of Bucky's throat. He got up from his chair and walked towards the pair of them, looking intently at Stark's handiwork. It really was a work of genius, the cogs and bolts fitting into the structure so well that they could barely be seen. He sat down opposite Erin, enthralled.

"May I?" The question was left open-ended as he held his hand out, and Erin silently placed her hand in his, metal on nano-fibre. Bucky turned her slender hand over in his own, mesmerised. It was made of thousands of tiny flat plates, all slotted one on top of the other to make a hand so lifelike that if it wasn't for the colour, Bucky may not have noticed it was fake at all. He turned to Tony, the hand still in his grasp.

"Can she feel anything through it?"

Tony shook his head at the question, "Nope. I implanted a few pressure sensors in there so she doesn't feel completely disconnected with it, but it's impossible to put actual nerves in a synthetic prosthetic." He shrugged, "I may have been able to put a heat sensor in there, but it would have made it bulkier, slower."

Bucky nodded in understanding, then got back to looking at the arm. He traced his finger from the centre of her palm up to the thin line where the matte black appendage joined her shoulder. Erin shivered, so slightly that he hardly noticed it, as his fingers moved onto skin. This part of her had nerves, this part could feel everything.

"They did the same with mine," He told Tony, removing his hand and not failing to notice the way that Erin slumped down slightly in her seat as his fingers left her shoulder, "Picks up pressure but not much else."

The billionaire nodded and looked at Bucky's arm. He was wearing a tight-fitted black V-neck, but the sleeves were short and the gaudy red star peeked out from under the fabric, emblazoned on his arm like a tattoo.

"I can get rid of that if you want," Tony suggested. Bucky looked at him in confusion.

"Get rid of what?"

"That red star on your arm. I can probably file it off, but if I can't it wouldn't be tricky to just replace the panel."

Bucky raised his eyebrows in surprise at Tony's words. Why was he helping him? Before Poland, before Erin, Bucky had been part of the organisation that Tony had been fighting against. The two should be sworn enemies.

"Why?" The question was out of his mouth before he could stop it. Tony merely smiled.

"Some things are better to forget," was all he said. Bucky nodded.

"If it's possible, that would be incredible," he pulled the hem of his shirt sleeve down to cover the red painted star, a memory of a time he would rather not remember.

"Come in any time this week, I'll see what I can do," Tony said, standing up and holding out his hand. Bucky took it, skin on metal, and shook firmly. This was for more than just the offer to repaint his arm. This was the man who flew him to Poland, and who flew him and Erin back unconscious. This was the man who had taken an impossible situation and made it somehow work out. Bucky smiled at Tony, a smile that reached his eyes finally.

This was a man who had fixed the broken pieces of the woman he loved.

This was for a friend.

"You should be okay from here," Stark said to Erin, shaking her hand as well. He winced slightly as she grasped slightly too hard, still not entirely comfortable with the settings of her new arm, "If you have any problems you know where to find me. It will be a little hard to manoeuvre for the first few weeks but you should grow into it, so to speak."

Erin nodded and smiled, and the sight of it made a breath catch in the back of Bucky's throat. She was beautiful when she smiled.

"I don't know how to thank you, Tony,"

He rolled his eyes and brushed her thanks away with the wave of a hand.

"As soon as you invent an alcohol that won't give me a hangover, let me know. That's all I ask for in repayment."

Erin snorted out a laugh and stood up, slipping her brown leather jacket on over her top, covering up most of Stark's handiwork.

"It's a deal,"

She took Bucky's hand and threaded her fingers through it, skin on skin, and gave Tony one last smile.

"See you around, Stark."

* * *

Erin was making weird noises in the bathroom.

Bucky was sat on her bed, metal hand absent-mindedly buried in the thick fur behind Crooskhanks' neck, the post credits of their second Matrix movie on the night rolling down the laptop in front of him. There was a half-eaten pizza on the nightstand, and a shard left of a vase that Erin had broken earlier on in the night by picking it up slightly too hard with her new hand.

"Fuck," there it was again, an irritated grunt coming from the bathroom just next to him. Erin had gone in for a shower over ten minutes ago, and Bucky still hadn't heard the sound of any running water. He didn't know what it was that recently-amputee biochemists did in the restroom and a part of him didn't want to know, so he thought he'd leave her to her own devices.

"Bollocks,"

He rolled his eyes and got up off the bed, before knocking on the door.

"You okay in there, Erin?"

"Son of a bastard pissing button won't bloody undo,"

"It's like you just tried to say a sentence and fit as many profanities as you could in it, I kind of respect that," Bucky deadpanned, fighting the urge to laugh out loud at her language, "No idea what you were trying to say, though,"

"Oh, get in here," she grumbled, and Bucky opened the door, a grin on his face at the annoyance in her voice. She was sat on the rim of the bathtub, struggling to open the button at the front of her washed-out skinny jeans. She looked up at Bucky and raised an eyebrow, daring him to laugh.

"New hand can't quite do the fiddly bits," she explained, pushing her hair back from her face, annoyed. She took a deep breath in, and then out.

"You're gonna have to help."

Help? Bucky felt his mouth go dry at the prospect of getting his fingers that close to her thighs. He felt his heart begin to beat a little faster.

"You want me to help you take your clothes off?" His voice sounded casual, covering up the fact that his palm was beginning to get slightly sweaty.

She snorted out a laugh at his phrasing, but he noticed the small blush that crept up her cheek.

"These jeans have three-day-old Chinese food on them I'd rather not sleep in them," she responded, standing up, "It's just the one button, then you can go back to Crooky,"

Just the one button. Okay, he could do that. She walked up to him and stood half a metre in front of him. She was so close he could feel the warmth radiating from her. She was like the sun.

"Just the one button," he muttered. He took a step forwards until his chest was touching hers, and looked down into her face. He could feel the erratic heartbeat thudding out of her chest, matching his own. With his metal hand, he reached down between them and flicked the button, popping it open easily. His hand stayed there, however, cold metal fingers resting on her navel. How he wished in that moment that his arm could feel more than just pressure, that it could feel her smooth hot skin under his fingers. She took a small intake of breath, so quiet he could hardly hear it and stood up on her tiptoes.

Her mouth came to his without a word spoken between them, in mutual agreement. Bucky's metal hand wandered higher under her black tank top, coming to rest just under her left breast. He was painfully aware of the fact that she didn't have a bra on, and he felt her shiver at the cold touch. Her tongue pressed its way between his lips almost hesitantly, and he was happy to respond, opening his mouth with an urgency that surprised him. It had been a long time since he had done this.

Bucky's other hand, the one made of skin and flesh and bone, wrapped itself around Erin's hair, pulling her closer to him and deepening the kiss, turning her head sideways to give him better access to that smart mouth. Her hand fiddled with the small hairs at the nape of his neck, making him shiver. She broke the kiss, breathing heavily, Bucky's hand still under her shirt, grazing the bottom of her breast.

"You know, I can probably take a rain check on that shower..."

That was all the encouragement he needed to lift her up in his arms and carry her bridal-style to her double bed. Yes, of course he wanted to fuck her in the shower, fuck her on the floor, fuck her up against the freshly painted new wall, but this was their first time. He wanted it to be right.

He continued to kiss her as he lay her down on the bed, his hands on her face now, cupping her jaw as he straddled her torso. He broke the kiss for half a second to remove his shirt, pulling it over his head so quickly he swore he could hear something tear in the fabric. He looked down at Erin, looked down at those big brown eyes that were so full of trust it nearly broke him.

"You okay with this?" He asked, checking. She nodded in affirmative and brought her hands up to his face, pulling him back down. She kissed him again, and he felt her smile underneath it, her plump lips turning up at the sides. Bucky's lips travelled down her neck to her shoulder, where her skin was grafted onto her new synthetic arm. He left a trail of kisses down the thin angry red line and looked up at her, his blue eyes shining. He grabbed the bottom of her thin black vest and with one fluid movement pulled it up over her body. She helped him and threw it to the side of the room, letting it crumple up with the multitude of other clothes that she still needed to wash. He looked down at her, his eyes roaming over her naked torso. Not hungrily, but with something else, a sense of rightness, of belonging. He kissed down her clavicle, his metal hand on the waistband of her jeans and his other cupping her breast as his kisses trailed further down her body. Her breathing was erratic, coming in short bursts and Bucky couldn't help but feel slightly smug at the knowledge that he was doing that to her. He was the one who was making her see stars in the periphery of her eyes. His mouth reached the waistband of her jeans and his hand left her breast to undo the zipper fully, before tugging them off her legs and throwing them to the floor where her shirt had landed.

Erin jerked her body into an upright position, surprising Bucky, who moved backwards slightly to giver her some room.

"Fuck,"

"What?"

"The cat,"

Erin looked over to the corner of the room where Crookshanks was sitting with her back turned away from them, absent-mindedly licking her paws. Bucky snorted out a laugh and hopped off the bed, painfully hard, picking up the cat and disposing of her in the front room before closing the door to Erin's bedroom. He turned around, his arms wide. She was sat up on the bed, cross-legged wearing only a pair of simple blue briefs, hair messy and the make-up from today long washed off. Bucky had never seen anything so beautiful.

"Cat gone," he said, returning to the bed and without hesitation getting back into his position. He pushed Erin down gently by the shoulders and kissed a trail across her inner thigh, following the marks of the scars that had been left there months before. He heard Erin let out a small gasp, and mutter something that sounded like his name. At that encouragement, he rubbed his thumb from the top to the bottom of the crotch of her panties, making her squirm slightly at the sensation.

"Fucking hell, Buck," she muttered to herself, and he chuckled low in his throat, attaching his lips right to her inner thigh, centimetres away from where she could now feel something akin to a fire building. Bucky's dark jeans were getting uncomfortably tight, building up a friction in his groin that made goosebumps rise on his skin. He looked up at Erin again, whose chest was rising and falling quickly as she breathed in and out, and slid her panties off, pulling them from her legs until she was completely naked before him. He undid his own belt buckle and quickly shimmied out of his trousers and boxers, throwing them to the side of the room.

"I'm going to have to put a wash on," Erin said breathlessly and laughed. Her laugh was interrupted by Bucky's mouth once more, kissing her passionately. His fingers were still meandering around her upper thigh, teasing her.

He looked up for a second, his eyes suddenly serious.

"You sure you're okay with this?"

She rolled her eyes and whilst he wasn't paying attention, hooked her leg around his and flipped them around so he was on his back and she was straddling him. His eyes opened in surprise, his pupils blown wide.

"Definitely okay with this."

"Fuck, that's hot," he muttered, almost to himself. She bent down and kissed him one more time, deep and slow.

"Where are those super-secret assassin reflexes now, huh?" her breath was hot in his ear, her voice playful but just seductive enough to send a jolt of heat to his groin. He kissed her again, and mid-kiss flipped her back over, thrusting into her without breaking the seal of their lips. A low groan, almost animalistic escaped from the back of his throat at the sensation of tight wet heat.

"Super-secret assassin reflexes engaged," he joked, kissing her again.

"Fucking nerd," she chuckled and moved her hips slightly, eliciting a low groan from Bucky and a high-pitched gasp from herself.

"Fuck," she muttered, threading one of her hands through his hair. the other hand grabbed onto the headboard behind her, fist tight. There was a splintering of wood as the mechanical hand tore through the headboard with ease. Evidently, she didn't care an awful lot about regulating pressure at the moment.

Bucky continued to kiss her, his movements becoming more erratic. She could feel the heat between her thighs increasing to an almost painful friction as he moved, and with a gasp and a breathy cry of 'Bucky', her torso lifted from the bed as she climaxed, pleasure flooding through her veins like blood. Bucky followed soon after, collapsing on top of her in a sweaty panting heap.

He kissed her one more time. Slowly, languidly, before lifting himself up on one elbow and looking down at her. She was flushed, panting, her lips wet and red and her pupils blown wide. Her eyes were so dark it was hard to see them.

"I love you, Erin Jefferson."

She smiled and pulled him down for a second kiss, rubbing her thumb over the spot on his shoulder where metal met skin.

"I love you, James Buchannan Barnes."

Bucky smiled and felt a hole in himself, a small hole that had been there for so long and had recently started to heal, close up entirely. He was home.

"Honest?" He asked her, almost scared for the response. Those three words meant more to him than anything ever had. She smiled at him and brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes. She rubbed his jaw with her finger. She was so comfortable around him, it had been so long since he had felt as content as he did right now. It was like a warm glow was radiating all around his body. It wasn't just the sex, even though that certainly played a part in it. It was more to do with the sensation of complete and utter belonging.

"Honest."

 **THE END**


End file.
